^ PR ^ 

55?1 








.^lM 


THE PRINCESS 
Tennyson 


,- ■ . 












Class ^11 Six. 1^^ 

Book .AiJll 

Copyright N'i' 

COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



jobnson Series of engllsb Classics. 

GOLDSMITH'S VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. Edited by 
Prof. G. C. Edwards. 

BURKE'S SPEECH OIN COINCILIATIOiN. Edited by Dr. 
James M. Garnett. 

TEININYSON'S PRINCESS. Edited by Dr. C. W. Kent. 

(MACAULAY'S ESSAYS ON IV1ILTON AND ADDISON. 
Edited by Dr. C. Alphonso Smith. 

POPE'S HOMER'S ILIAD. Edited by Professors F. E. 
Shoup and Isaac Ball. 

SHAKESPEARE'S MACBETH. Edited by Dr. J. B. 
Henneman. 

MILTON'S L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO, COMUS, and 
LYCIDAS. Edited by Prof. Benjamin Sledd. 

ADDISON'S SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. 
Edited by Prof. Lancelot M. Harris. 

SHAKESPEARE'S MERCHANT OF VENICE. Edited by 
Dr. Robert Sharp. 

COOPER'S LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Edited by 
Prof. Edwin Mims. 

GEORGE ELIOT'S SILAS MARNER. Edited by Prof. 
W. L. Weber. 



Others to be Announced. 




ALFRKI) TLNNYSON. 
[After a painting by G. F. Watts, R. A,] 









jon 



EDITED 

With Introduction, Analysis and Notes 

BV 

CHARLES W. KENT, M. A,, Ph. D. 

Linden Kent Meviorial School of Engliah Literature 
University of Virginia 



^ 



t^iichmona, J^^a 
%_A}. kj/^. Johnson i..'^uolishinn (^o. 

^90/ 



TH€ L»BRA«V OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Cof^ita Received 

AUG. 20 1901 

COPVflieMT CNTHy 

CLASS <3^XXc N=». 
COPY B. 






Copyright, iqoi, 

BY 

CHARLES W. KENT. 



All Rights Reserved. 






To 

THE LITTLE AGLaYa OF OUR HOME, 

ELEANOR DOUGLAS KENT. 



A FOREWORD. 



It is not to the disadvantage of a text-book that it 
is the product of the class room, and, therefore, no 
excuse is needed for associating this book as closely as 
possible with the Spring Term of 1899-1900. Around 
the long table in my office a harmless warfare of 
spirited conversation was waged about every mooted 
point or doubtful interpretation in The Princess, 
while unsupported opinions were promptly challenged. 
It was no dissatisfaction with Cook's edition of The 
Princess that led to this book, but in this will be 
found incorporated much suggested by that, or rather 
by the discussion to which that gave rise. Other 
editions, notably Sherman's and Rolfe's, were not 
neglected, and many books of many kinds were con- 
sulted. Acknowledgment to these appears on almost 
every page. But if this edition has merits of analysis, 
argument, interpretation, and particularly of vitality 
and freshness, these are in large measure due to the 
intelligent, quick-witted, and unfettered young men 
whose interest and industry gave me constant pleasure 
and kept me constantly alert. I trust the book will 
[ 7 ] 



8 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

recall to tliem, as to me, many invigorating and de- 
lightful hours. I am sure they will not begrudge the 
credit I give to one of their number, my assistant of 
this session, Mr. Carol M. Newman, who has followed 
this book from first inception to final proof. His 
tareful and scholarly scrutiny has missed no page 
Except this on which I publicly record my grateful 
indebtedness. 

Charles W. Kent. 
University of Virginia. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Introduction 11-27 

Biographical sketch n 

Chronology j^ 

Serviceable books 19 

The Princess : A Medley 20 

A Rosary of Tributes 24 

Persons 25 

Analysis of 'The Princess" 27 

The Princess : A Medley 31-228 

Prologue 3i_^5 

Canto I 46_6o 

Intercalary Poem I— "As Thro' the Land" . . 61 

Canto II 63^0 

Intercalary Poem II— "Sweet and Low" ... 91 

Canto III 92-113 

Intercalary Poem III— "The Splendor Falls" . 114 

Canto IV 11.S-146 

Plot Song I— "Tears, Idle Tears" 117 

Plot Song II— "O Swallow, Swallow" ... 120 

Interlude 147-148 

Intercalary Poem IV— "Thy Voice is Heard" . 147 

Canto V 149-176 

Intercalary Poem V— "Home They Brought Her 

Warrior Dead" 177 

Canto VI 178-198 

Plot Song IV— "Our Enemies Have Fallen" . 179 

Intercalary Poem VI— "Ask Me No More" . , 199 

Canto VII 200-220 

Plot Song V— "Now Sleeps the Crimson 

Petal" 209 

Plot Song VI— "Come Down, O Maid" ... 210 

Conclusion 221-228 

[ 9 ] 



INTRODUCTION. 



Biographical Sketch. 

AT Somersby Rectory, in Lincolnshire, on August 
6, 1809, was born to Rev. Dr. George Clayton 
Tennyson and Emily Fytche, his wife, their fourth 
son, christened Alfred. 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate of England 
and prince among men, died at Aldworth, in Surrey, 
on October 6, 1892, and was buried with unusual 
honors in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. 

Between these events, thus barely recorded, 
stretches the consistent life of the greatest English 
poet of the era closed yesterday (January 22, 1901) 
by the death of the illustrious Queen Victoria. 

Given in his early childhood the environment of a 
cultivated and refined home and excellent educational 
opportunities provided and supervised by an intelli- 
gent and ambitious father, Alfred Tennyson made 
rapid progress at Cadney's village school, at Louth, 
and under tutors selected for his further preparation 
for Cambridge. Llis mental development was accom- 
panied and fostered by his love of good reading, his 
desire to express himself in verse, and his distinct 
growth in the appreciation of natural scenery. 
[ II ] 



12 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

His first poetic line, as Mrs. Ritchie claims, 'I hear 
a voice that's speaking in the wind,' suggests, perhaps 
by mere accident, his inclination to make use of na- 
ture's lights and sounds, and odors too, as the sugges- 
tive material of poetical illustration. 

But there was one serious external obstacle to poetic 
ambition. We can hardly appreciate at this day the 
spell cast upon younger aspirants for poetic honors by 
the dazzling and overwhelming success of Byron, who 
seemed the very incarnation of poetic genius. His 
splendid achievements marked the limit beyond which 
no contemporary poet aspired to pass, and the loud 
acclaim of his greatness made the plaudits reserved for 
lesser men but feeble echoes. ''Byron is dead," 
scratched on the soft sandstone of Holywell Glen, 
was not alone the mournful, but transient epitaph of 
one whose fame as a man and as a poet should both 
suffer partial eclipse, but it was also the emancipation 
of a repressed spirit from the thraldom of a great 
name and a greater influence. 

Tennyson's poetic production begins with the vol- 
ume published by his brother Charles and himself in 
1827. They found in Louth a publisher to whom they 
willingly parted with their rights for £^ in money and 
£S in books. His next volume was published in 1830, 
while he was a Cambridge student. Lie had matricu- 
lated at Cambridge in 1828, entering Trinity College. 
If he complained somewhat of the uncongenial exac- 
tions of Cambridge he was but following his famous 
predecessors Milton and Gray, who, like himself, re- 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

gretted their earlier views and acknowledged the sub- 
stantial benefits they had received. 

And surely the years were not lost that gave to the 
young poet the helpful friendship and intelligent ad- 
miration of such men as Lushington, Merivale, Al- 
ford, Spedding, Maurice, Milnes, Trench, and Arthur 
Henry Hallam. These were not all, for he was a 
member of the Apostles' Club, whose fame he in- 
creased and extended. This club, composed of young 
men of eminent talent, furnished delightful relief from 
the inflexible requirements of the curriculum, and 
afforded the inspiration and stimulus which Cam- 
bridge officially failed to supply. 

Winning the Chancellor's Prize in 1829, he devoted 
himself more and more to writing poetry, which he 
printed m the undergraduate volume of 1830. At 
the request of his father, who was ailing, Alfred 
withdrew from Cambridge, about a month before the 
death (on March 16, 1831) of this trusted counsellor, 
and did not, therefore, procure a degree. 

Of the Cambridge friendships none was so tenderly 
cherished or waxed so strong as that with Hallam. 
They had met in 1&28, probably when both were 
under the tutorship of William Whewell, and had 
been friendly rivals for the Chancellor's Prize in 1829. 
They travelled together in the sunmier of 1830, and, 
after Tennvson left Cambridge, Hallam was a frequent 
visitor at Somersby Rectory, where he had found 
another and a more potent attraction in Emily Tenny- 
son, the younger sister of his colleq-e friend. To her 



14 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

he became engaged after procuring his degree in 1832. 
In this year Tennyson published Poems, a vokime of 
one hundred and sixty-three pages, retaining many of 
the poems of his University period witli about thirty 
written since his withdrawal. Offsetting his friends' 
triumphant welcome of this volume there was much 
adverse criticism of its contents. The poet was 
sensitive, but ready to learn. Ten years of silence was 
his answer to the critics' opinion of his poetry. 

During these years of waiting he was enriching his 
life with friendships and associations, storing his mind 
with the world's best, and walking closely with nature. 
Above all he was unconsciously and beyond estimate 
developed by the discipline of a great sorrow. His 
beloved friend, Hallam, died in Vienna, on September 
I5j ^^33' ^y degrees Tennyson's mind, sunk in 
abysmal grief, rose to the happy level of their old 
companionship, and thence followed him beyond the 
skies in its effort to solve man's deep and dominant 
problem of immortality. What of his friend's relation 
to the living, what of his present occupation, what of 
their reunion? These and a hundred other questions 
in their train crowded upon the poet's mind, and 
sought their answers in his growing elegy. 

The silence of these ten years of studious waiting 
and painstaking composition, years so full of dejec- 
tion, but so full also of that deeper training for his 
greater glory, was broken by the Poems of 1842. Of 
these two volumes the first contained mainly old poems 
altered or rewritten in the light of helpful criticism, 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

but the second was made up of new poems. With 
these volumes Tennyson's fame was assured, and it 
was competent for the illuminated youth of Oxford to 
defend the proposition that 'Alfred Tennyson is the 
greatest English poet of the age.' New editions of 
his poems were now annually demanded, and finally in 
1845 the 'Author of Ulysses' was recognized by the 
government in a pension of £200. 

In 1847 Tennyson published his' first long poem. 
The Princess, A Medley, which is in this volume pre- 
sented to the reader. To what is said elsewhere may 
be added here the thought that the true merit of this 
poem was obscured by theovershadowing excellence of 
his splendid elegy, In Memoriam, published in 1850^ 
Tennyson's Golden Year, in which he became famous^ 
was made Poet Laureate, and married Emily Sell wood. 

After this running account of Tennyson's life 
through 1850, hence beyond the significant third edi- 
tion of The Princess, a bare mention of some of the 
main events in his subsequent life must suffice. 
In 1855 appeared Maud, a Monody, always a favorite 
with its author, and in 1859 hegan a greater favorite 
with the inner circle of his admirers. The Idylls 
of the King. This epic, the realization of the un- 
fulfilled plans of both Milton and Dryden, was not 
completed until 1885, ten years after he had entered 
upon his Dramatic Period, which lasted until his death. 
In all these years, however, had appeared many sepa- 
rate volumes, each bearing the title of some im- 
portant poem. There came to him every honor that 



l6 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

individuals or organizations could confer. His gov- 
ernment which had once honored him with a pension, 
and then with a Laureateship, had several times 
pressed upon him a Baronetcy, but not until 1884 did 
he yield to the wishes of Gladstone, ably supplemented 
by the persuasive reasoning of many of his near 
friends, and accept the Peerage. 

Tennyson's time was divided between his homes at 
Aldworth and Farringford, and his life was lived amid 
all possible comforts, and, better still, in the affection 
of thousands near and far. Not until 1892 did his 
bodily failing give cause for anxiety, though he fre- 
quently longed for the 'quiet hereafter.' In the 
autumn of 1892 he was known to be declining, and 
towards the end of September his death seemed im- 
minent. The medical bulletin published on October 
7th gives the story of the end. 

'The tendency to fatal syncope may be said to have really 
commenced about 10 a. m. on Wednesday, and on Thursday, 
October 6th, at 1 135 a. m., the great poet breathed his last. 
Nothing could have been more striking than the scene during 
the last few hours. On the bed a figure of breathing marble, 
flooded and bathed in the light of the full moon streaming 
through the oriel window ; his hand clasping the Shakespeare 
•which he had asked for but recently, and which he had kept 
by him to the end; the moonlight, the majestic figure as he 
lay there, "drawing thicker breath," irresistibly brought to 
our minds his own Passing of Arthur/ 

Thus closed the life of Alfred Tennyson. This new 
century we call ours will reckon among its most pre- 
cious heritages the life and the work of this represen- 
tative poet of the nineteenth century. 



INTRODUCTION. 



IZ 



Brief Chronology of the Life and Poems of 
Tennyson. 

1809, August 6th. Born at Somersby Rectory in Lincoln- 
shire. 

1814. His first poetic hne: 'T hear a voice that's speaking 
in the wind." 

1816. Sent to school in Louth. 

1820. Removed from Louth. 

1824. Carved on the soft sandstone "Byron is dead." 

1825. In the previous year and this wrote much poetry. 

1826. Poems by Two Brothers, by Charles and Alfred Tenny- 

son, sold to a publisher, Jackson, of Louth. 

1827. Poems by Tivo Brothers published. 

1828. February 20th. Matriculated at Cambridge : Fred- 

erick already there: Charles went with him. 

1829. June 6th. Won the Chancellor's Prize for a poem on 

Timbuctoo. 

1830. Poems Chiefly Lyrical appeared, published by Wilson: 

with Hallam in Spain. 

1831. Tennyson's father died: Alfred left Cambridge: Hal- 

lam engaged to Emily. 

1832. Poems by Alfred Tennyson, published by Moxon. 

1833. Hallam died in Vienna on September 15th. 

1834. Hallam buried at Clevedon : Tennyson in London writ- 

ing poetry. 

1835. With Fitzgerald at the Speddings' : writing poetry. 
1836-1841. Writing, travelling, in London, etc. 

1841. Preparing volume of poems for publisher. 

1842. Poems by Alfred Tennyson (2 vols.), published by 

Moxon. 
1843-1846. Somewhat depressed physically, but interested 

in the editions of his poems. 
1847. The Princess, A Medley, published by Moxon. 
1848-1849. Busy with In Meinoriain. 



l8 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

1850. In Memoriam: Married Emily Sellwood: Poet Laure- 
ate, November 19th. 
1855. Maud and Other Poems appeared. 
1859. Idylls of the King (not finished until 1885). 
1864. Enoch Arden and Other Poems. 
1872, Library edition of the Complete Works. 
1875. The Dramas (not finished until 1892). 
1880. Ballads and Other Poems. 

1884. Gazetted Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Farhng- 

ford. 

1885. Tiresias and Other Poems. 

1886. Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, etc. 
1889. Demeter and Other Poems. 

1892. October 6th. Died at Aldworth. 

October 12th. Buried in Westminster Abbey. 
The Death of Qinone, Akhar's Dream, and Other 
Poems, published October 28th. 



INTRODUCTION. 19 



A List of Serviceable Books for the Study of 
Tennyson. 

1. 'Alfred Lord Tennyson : A Memoir by his Son.' 

2. 'Alfred Lord Tennyson.' Waugh. 

3. 'Lord Tennyson.' Jennings. 

4. 'Alfred Tennyson: His Life and Works.' Wace. 

5. 'The Laureate's Country.' Church. 

6. 'In Tennyson Land.' Walters. 

7. 'Tennyson: His Art and Relation to Modern Life.' 

Brooke. 

8. 'A Study of Tennyson's Works.' Tainsh. 

9. 'The Poetry of Tennyson.' Van Dyke. 

10. 'Lord Tennyson and the Bible.' Lester. 

11. 'Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning.' Mrs. Ritchie. 

12. 'Tennyson and His Pre-Raphaelite Illustrators.' LayarJ. 

13. 'Tennysoniana.' Second Edition. Pickering & Co. 

14. 'Illustrations of Tennyson.' Churton Collins. 

15. 'Victorian Poets.' Stedman. 

16. 'English Literature of XlXth Century.' Saintsbury. 

17. 'Study of The Princess.' Wallace. 

18. 'Study of The Princess.' Dawson. 

19. 'Tennyson's Poems.'. Macmillan & Co. 

20. Editions of 'The Princess' by Rolfe, Woodberry, Cook, 

Sherman, ci al. 



20 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

The Princess^ A Medley, 

This poem was published in 1847. The second edi- 
tion of 1848, which in other respects is the same as 
the first, has the addition of the following dedication: 

TO 

HENRY LUSHINGTON 

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY HIS FRIEND, 

A. Tennyson. 

In 1850 the third edition appeared with many omis- 
sions, but with significant additions of six songs, and 
of certain lines rendered necessary by their insertion. 
The fourth edition of 1851 introduced the 'weird seiz- 
ures' of the Prince, and the fifth of 1853 fixed the text 
as we now have it. 

The poem was 'mostly written in Lincoln's Inn 
Fields' (Hallam Tennyson), and at a time when the 
poet was too young to have lost interest in the college 
reminiscences imbedded in this romantic story, and 
too old to count as trivial the serious problem he was 
studying, or its right or wrong solution, as of little 
consequence. The subject-matter of the poem he had 
discussed with Emily Sellwood as early as 1839, and 
his interest in the underlying problem dated perhaps 
from his reading of Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindica- 
tion of the Rights of Woman. The poem was planned 
when a 'Woman's College' was in the air, and when 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

Tennyson is reported as saying that the two great 
social questions of England were 'the housing and 
education of the poor man before making him our 
master, and the higher education of woman.' 

The analysis of the poem (p. 27) shows clearly 
the progress of the captivating story, and at the same 
time suggests the final triumph of the serious spirit 
over the prevailing humor of the early cantos. The 
poem is divided into Seven Parts, with a Prologue and 
Conclusion, and is broken by an Interlude that pre- 
serves the setting of the story, yet points the way to 
an earnest and satisfactory ending. 

The cantos themselves fall into paragraphs marked 
by distinct unity, and closing generally with most 
artistic effects. The tedium of sustained blank verse 
is relieved not only by these paragraph pauses, but by 
the insertion within the cantos of songs essential to 
the story, and, therefore, in this edition called Plot- 
Songs. These are in varied metre. Furthermore, the 
reader's mind is relieved and enchanted by the little 
interpretative poems intercalated between the cantos 
themselves. These songs, singly commented upon in 
the Notes, may be here passed over with the general 
statement that in beauty, variety, and finish of form, 
and in artistic contrast with the body of the poem, 
they are unexcelled within or without this volume. 

Tennyson's artistic use of rhyme, and his no less 
artistic skill in discarding it, are apparent in these 
lyrics, but attention is particularly directed here to 
his blank verse. To say that it is Miltonic may mean 



22 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

to the reader nothing more than that, as Milton's, it is 
excellent. But it is Miltonic in its poetic vocabulary 
and its sonorous phrasal power. It is hardly too much 
to say that there is not a unique word or a peculiar 
use of a poetic word in The Princess that may not be 
found in Milton's poems. In freedom of metrical 
structure, it is no less Miltonic. Not only is there, as 
in all good blank verse, free use of elision, slurring, 
and contraction, but there is no hesitancy in employ- 
ing the extra-metrical syllable where necessary. The 
verse pause is, as in Milton, varied at will, and for 
direct and clearly recognized effects substituted feet 
are used with complete disregard of that regular re- 
currence of accents erroneously considered the very 
essential of English verse. The most attractive 
quality of Tennyson's blank verse is its tone-color. 
Nowhere is he happier in the use of vowel or conso- 
nant sequences for artistic effects. Examples of this 
may so easily be given that a few citations must here 
suffice : 

1. For "hollow oes and aes," Prl. 20; Pn,. 24; I. 215; I. 
39; 11. 450-454; H. 433; in. 74; IV. 453, etc. 

2. For top vowels, particularly i., IV. 82-83; I. 204-206; 
Prl. 238; IH. 274, etc. 

3. For abrupt effect of p, b, and d, Prl. 42; II. 232; V. 
291 ; VII. 230; II. 159. 

4. For union of sibilants and liquids, Prl. 86-8; VII. 48; 
I. 85-86. 

5. For syzyg-y in m, VI. 174; IV. 416; VII. 205-7, etc. 

These examples, not in themselves of much impor- 
tance, are suggestive of further exercises. 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

A cursory reading of this poem for the first time 
may impress the reader with the feminine dehcacy of 
the verse form, the incongruities of treatment, and 
particularly with tlic insignificance of subject-matter. 
A second careful reading will indicate that all incon- 
gruities and inconsistencies that may not be readily 
explained and resolved are themselves an integral part 
of the medley character of the poem. This second 
reading will establish the fact that the real subject- 
matter of the poem, the Woman Problem— not the 
Founding of the Academe — is not trivial, but essen- 
tially important, and that the solution of the vexed 
problem is in concurrence with the best thought of 
England and conservative America. 

Another reading, perhaps this time a thoughtful 
study, of the poem will convince the reader that in 
artistic plan and final finish it is no whit inferior to 
Tennyson's other long poems. The poem may lack 
high truth and high seriousness, but it does not lack 
truth of practice and of principle, and its element of 
seriousness is pervasive, though not overburdening. 



24 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

A Rosary of Trirutes. 

'It deeply presses on my reflection hew much wiser 
a book is Tennyson's Princess than my Qitatcniions.' 
— Sir William Rowan LIamilton. 

'Not often has a lovelier story been recited; 

— Edmund Clarence Stedman. 

'The poem cf The Princess, as a work of art, is the 
most complete and satisfying of all Tennyson's 
works.' _S. E. Dawson. 

'How Mr. Tennyson can have attained the prodigal 
fullness of thought and imagery which distinguishes 
this poem, and especially the last canto, without his 
style ever becoming overloaded, seldom even confused, 
is perhaps one of the greatest marvels of the whole 
production.' —Charles Kingsley. 

The Princess is a masterpiece.' 

— George Saintsbury. 

'For my own part I confess to finding it, if not one 
of the poetically greatest, yet the most humanly com- 
plete of all the poet's works.' — H. D. Traill. 

'A dreamy story full of music and fuller still of rich 
and suggestive imagery.' —Arthur Waugh. 

'The most delightful of the larger poems.' 

— Stopford Brooke. 

'A work so exquisitely elaborated in point of style.' 

— Churton Collins. 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

Persons. 

Of the Introduction, Interlude, and Conclusion : 
Sir Walter Vivian— a broad-shouldered, genial Eng- 
lishman, Patron of the Institute. 
Walter Vivian— Host of his college friends. 
Lilia Vivian— Walter's sister, 'half child, half woman.' 
Five Sons of Sir Walter— Head under head.' 
Aunt Elizabeth— Aunt of Walter and Lilia, 'crammed 

with theories out of books.' 
The Poet— I, Binder of the 'scattered scheme of seven.' 
Five College Friends of Walter and the Poet— One the 

son of a Tory member. 
Ladies visiting Vivian Place— From neighbor seats. 
Leaders of the Institute, men, women, and children. 

Reference is made to — 
Sir Ralph of Ascalon. 
Hugh of Agincourt. 
The 'Miracle of Women.' 

Of the Story : 
Ida— The Princess of the South. 
Psyche— The Princess' half-self, sister of Florian : 'a 

quick brunette of twenty summers.' 
Aglaia— Psyche's babe, 'a double April old.' 
Blanche— Author of the plan for the Academe. 
Melissa— Blanche's daughter; a rosy blonde. 
Violet— The only student mentioned by name. 
Gama— Father of the Princess; a little dry old man. 
Arac — Ida's brother; of giant mold. 
The Twins— Ida's brothers. 
The Prince— Of the North. 
Florian — The Prince's half-self. 

Cyril — "The incarnation of humorous common sense." 
The Prince's Father— Who 'thought a king a king.' 



26 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

Others playing parts are — 
Mine Host. 
Sentry. 
Herald. 
Knights. 
Squire. 

Ambassadors. 
Captain. 
Armies. 

Camp Followers. 
Barons. 
Lords. 

Stable Wench. 
Ostleress. 
Woman Poet. 
Daughters of the Plow. 
Portress. 
Hostess. 

Female Proctors. 
Female Students. 
Doctors. 
Professors. 

Reference is made to the ancestors and mother of the 
Princess; to the far-off grandsire and the mother of the 
Prince; to Florian's mother, and to the Court Doctor. 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

Analysis of The Princess/ 

Subject: Woman's Higher Education. 
Theme: Tor woman is not undeveloped man, 

But diverse.' 
Classification: A Medley. 

Division : 

I. Prologue. 

II. Story. 

Canto I. — The Intrusion. 

Intercalary Poem I. — The Reconciliation. 
Canto II. — The Detection. 

Intercalary Poem II. — The Lullal)y. 
Canto III. — The Expedition. 

Intercalary Poem III.— The Echo Song. 
Canto IV. — The Expulsion. 

Plot Song I. — The Passion of Memory. 

Plot Song II. — The Lyric of Hope. 

Plot Song HI.— The Careless Tavern Catch (unre- 
corded). 

Interlude. 

■ Intercalary Poem IV. — The Battle Call. 
Canto V. — The Combat. 

Intercalary Poem V. — The Consolation. 
Canto VI.— The Victory of Nature. 

Plot Song IV. — Exultation. 

Intercalary Poem VI. — Reluctant Surrender. 

Canto VII. — The Victory of Love. 
Plot Song V. — Heart Union. 
Plot Song VI. — The Lover's Appeal. 

III. Conclusion. 



THE PRINCESS 

A MEDLEY. 



[ 29 ] 



THE PRINCESS 

A MEDLEY. 



THE PROLOGUE. 

[Upon the broad lawns of Sir Walter Vivian are gath- 
ered a thousand or more of the people amusing and enter- 
taining themselves. As lookers-on are seven college friends, 
including Walter Vivian and 'I,' the author, with Aunt Eliza- 
beth, Lilia and her friends. The conversation turns on the 
•miracle of women' mentioned in the Chronicle, and leads to 
a challenge of to-day's womanhood. From this it drifts to 
college days and Christmas hohdays, when for amusement 
the collegians told a 'tale from mouth to mouth.' This sug- 
gests a summer's tale, in which Lilia should be a Princess 
and each collegian in his turn a Prince.— Ed.] 

Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day 
Gave his broad lawns tintil the set of sun 
Up to the people : thither flock'd at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 

1. Sir Walter Vivian.— The prototype of Sir Walter 
Vivian was not Sir John Simpson, who is identified with the 
production of Maud, but Edmund Henry Lushington of 
Park House. Tennyson was intimate with the three sons, 
Edmund, Henry, and Franklin. The marriage of Edmund 
and Cecilia Tennyson is celebrated in the epithalamium, the 
fitting close to In Mcmoriam. The second edition of The 
Princess was dedicated to Henry, for whose critical powers 
Tennyson had profound respect. 

2. Lawns. — The park around Park House 

[ 31 ] 



32 THE PRINCESS: [prologue 

The neighboring borough with their Institute 5 

Of which he was the patron. I was there 
From college, visiting the son — the son 
A Walter too — with others of our set, 
Five others : we were seven at Vivian-place. 

And me that morning Walter showed the house, 10 

Greek, set with busts : from vases in the hall 
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, 
Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay 
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park. 
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time; 15 

And on the tables every clime and age 
Jumbled together; celts and calumets, 

5. Institute. — Maidstone Mechanics' Institute, of which 
Mr. Lushington was presumably a patron. 

8. A Walter too. — See note on i. Edmund Lushington's 
son Edmund. 

9. Seven. — This gives the cantos of the poem. 

I II. Set with busts. — The Greeks set their houses with 
busts both for adornment and adoration. 

14. Abbey-ruins. — Such ruins in Great Britain are 
numerous. Recall Dryburgh Abbey where Scott is buried, 
or Melrose Abbey, made famous by his description, etc. 

15. Ammonites. — Fossil cephalopod mollusks of curved 
or spiral shape, hence called cornu Ammonis, or the horn 
of the god Amnion (Libyan Zeus), worshipped under the 
form of a ram. First bones of Time. — Prehistoric bones. 

17. Jumbled. — Note that place, time, customs, etc., are 
jumbled in this 'Medley.' Celts. — Used to represent 
weapons and implements employed by primitive and pre- 
historic peoples. Calumets. — Indian pipes. 



prologue] a medley. 23 

Claymore and snowshoe, toys In lava, fans 

Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, 

Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, 20 

The cursed Malayan crease and battle-clubs 

From the isles of palm : and higher on the walls. 

Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, 

His own forefathers' arms and armor hung. 

And 'This/ he said, 'was Hugh's at Agincourt ; 25 
And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon: 
A good knight he ! We keep a chronicle 
With all about him' — which he brought, and I 
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights, 
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings 3o 

Who laid about them at their wills and died ; 
And mixed with these, a lady, one that armed 
Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate, 
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. 

18. Claymore. — A Scotch Highland broadsword. 

19. Sandal. — Sandalwood. Amber. — A light yellowish 
translucent lesin. Rosaries. — A string of beads by which 
prayers are counted. 

20. Note diminution of sound from deep o to high e, 
representing diminishing size of included sphere. 

21. Malayan crease (creese, Kris). — A dagger with a 
serpentine blade, making a jagged (or 'curved') wound. 

22. Isles of palm. — South Sea Islands. 

25. Agincourt. — Battle between English and French in 
1415. See Shakespeare's Henry V , Act IV. 

26. Ascalon. — Battle between Richard Coeur de Lion and 
Saladin in 1192. 

32, The armed woman suggests in part the theme of the 
poem. 



35 



34 THE PRINCESS: [prologue 

'O miracle of women,' said the book, 
'O noble heart who, being strait-besieged 
By this wild king to force her to his wish, 
Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunned a soldier's death, 
But now when all was lost, or seemed as lost — 
Her stature more than mortal in the burst 40 

Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire — 
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate, 
And, falling on them like a thunderbolt. 
She trampled some beneath her horse's heels, 
And some were whelmed with missiles of the wall, 45 
And some were pushed with lances from the rock, 
And part were drowned within the whirling brook: 
O miracle of noble womanhood !' 



So sang the gallant glorious chronicle ; 
And, I all rapt in this, 'Come out,' he said, 
'To the Abbey ; there is Aunt Elizabeth, 
And sister Lilia with the rest.' We went 
(I kept the book and had my finger in it) 
Down thro' the park ; strange was the sight to rne ; 

35-49. Not in first edition. Added to suggest the heroine 
and her heroic role. 

36. Strait-besieged. — Narrowly or closely beset. 
40. Mortal. — Human. Cf. Mortc d' Arthur: 

'Larger than human on the frozen hills.' 

Cf. Princess, IV, 469; V, 336, 499, etc. 
47. Cf. IV, 161 fif. 

50. Rapt.— Note Tennyson's fondness for this word. 
51-52. See list of personages. Note also argument of pro- 

losTie. 



50 



prologue] a medley. 35 

For all the sloping pasture murmured, sown 55 

With happy faces and with holiday. 

There moved the multitude, a thousand heads : 

The patient leaders of their Institute 

Taught them with facts. One reared a font of stone 

And drew, from butts of water on the slope, 60 

The fountain of the moment, playing, now 

A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, 

Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball 

Danced like a wisp; and somewhat lower down 

A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 65 

A cannon ; Echo answered in her sleep 

From hollow fields ; and here were telescopes 

For azure views ; and there a group of girls 

In circle waited, whom the electric shock 

Dislinked with shrieks and laughter; round the lake 70 

A little clock-work steamer paddling plied, 

And shook the lilies : perched about the knolls 

A dozen angry models jetted steam; 

A petty railway ran ; a fire-balloon 

Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves 75 

55. Sloping pastures. — Lawn ; cf. 2. 

59. Taught them with facts. — Knowles reports Tenny- 
son as saying, 'Poetry is a great deal truer than fact.' 

59-79. The 'facts' here set forth belong in the realm of 
Hydrodynamics, Electricity, Sound, Optics, Galvanism, Mo- 
tors, Steam, Aeronautics, and Telegraphy. 

66. Echo. — Personified as usual in the Greek. She was a 
nymph residing near the Ceplnssus. She pined for the beau- 
tiful youth Narcissus, until nothing was left of her save her 
voice. 



36 THE PRINCESS: [prologue 

And dropped a fairy parachute, and passed : 

And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph 

They flashed a saucy message to and fro 

Between the mimic stations ; so that sport 

Went hand in hand with science; otherwhere so 

Pure sport; a herd of boys with clamor bowled 

And stumped the wicket ; babies rolled about 

Like tumbled fruit in f>^rass ; and men and maids 

Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light 

And shadow, while the twangling violin 85 

Struck up with 'Soldier-laddie,' and overhead 

The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 

Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. 



Strange was the sight, and smacking of the time ; 
And long we gazed, but satiated at length 90 

Came to the ruins. High-arched and ivy-clasped, 



81-85. The 'sports' include cricket, lolling, dancing, and 
music. 

82. Stumped the wicket. — A cricket term. 

86-87. Note the prevalence of the s sound ; the significance 
also of the br and m and / sounds, 

86. 'Soldier laddie.'— A popular Scotch song beginning: 

♦ My soger laddie is over the sea. 
And he will bring gold and siller to me.' 

87. Ambrosial. — Heavenly. In Mcmortam, LXXXVT, i. 
Lime. — The lime tree. Cf. In Memoriam, LXXXVII, 4. 
Reference to Trinity College, Cambridge. 

89. Smacking of the time. — This particular festival was 
probably in 1844. 



prologue] a medley. 37 

Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, 

Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave 

The park, the crowd, the house; but all within 

The sward was trim as any garden lawn : 95 

And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, 

And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends 

From neighbor seats ; and there was Ralph himself, 

A broken statue propped against the wall, 

As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, 100 

Half child half woman as she was, had wound 

A scarf of orange around the stony helm, 

And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, 

That made the old warrior from his ivied nook 

Glow like a sunbeam ; near his tomb a feast 105 

Shone, silver-set ; about it lay the guests, 

And there we joined them : then the maiden Aunt 

Took this fair day for text, and from it preached 

An universal culture for the crowd, 

And all things great; but we, unworthier, told no 

Of college : he had climbed across the spikes. 

And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars, 

92. Gothic. — Contrast this with the Greek architecture of 
the mansion. See 11, 

93. Chasm. — (Made by) time and frost. 
98. See 26. 

102. Note the orange and rose colors in contrast with the 
stony helm of the broken statue. 

105. Note the medley involved in feasting near the tombs. 

109-110. As opposed to the doctrine of 'universal culture 
for the crowd,' the college men talk of pranks, thereby hinting 
at the story to follow. 



38 THE PRINCESS: [prologue 

And he had breathed the proctor's dogs ; and one 
Discussed his tutor, rough to common men, 
But honeying at the whisper of a lord; 
And one the Master, as a rogue in grain 
Veneered with sanctimonious theory. 

But while they talked, above their heads I saw 
The feudal warrior lady-clad ; which brought 
My book to mind ; and opening this I read 
Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 
With tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her 
That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, 
And nuich I praised her nobleness, and 'Where,' 
Asked Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay 
Beside him), iives there such a woman now?' 

Quick answered Lilia 'There are thousands now 
Such women, but convention beats them down; 
It is but bringing up ; no more than that ; 

113. Breathed ihe proctor's dogs. — By running, wearied 
out the pursuing animals of the proctor. 

115. Honeying. — Becoming sweet or pleasant. Has this a 
personal reference? 

116. In grain. — /. e., in fibre. See dictionary for in- 
grained. 

117. Veneered. — Thinly covered over. 

119. See Conclusion, 117. 

120. See 53. 

122. Refers to Twelfth Century. Cf. Prologue, 26. 

126. Walter's challenge of womanhood. 

126. Convention. — Conventional custom. Cf. II, 72. 



"5 



125 



prologue] a medley. 39 

You men have done it ; how I hate you all ! 130 

Ah, were I something great! I wish I were 

Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, 

That love to keep us children ! O I wish 

That I were some great princess, I would build 

Far off from men a college like a man's, i35 

And 1 would teach them all that men are taught ; 

We are twice as quick !' And here she shook aside 

The hand that played the patron with her curls. 

And one said smiling Tretty were the sight 
If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt 140 
With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, 
And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. 
I think they should not wear our rusty gowns, 
But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ralph 
Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear, 145 

If there were many Lilias in the brood. 
However deep you might embower the nest. 
Some boy would spy it.' y 

130. Cf. VII, 241. Cf. Psyche's Indictment, II, loi ff. Cf. 
Ill, 260 ff. 

133. Love to keep us children. — This suggests Ida's chief 
grievance. Cf. I, 136, 140, etc.; II, 44. 

134-136. Plan of story suggested. Note Shakespeare's 
Love's Labor's Lost for the establishment of an 'Academe' 
for men only. 

138. Played the patron. — Caressed patronizingly. 125. 

140, Flaunt. — Be glaring or gaudy. 

141. Cf. The Doctor's Daughter. Memoir, II, p. 248. 

144. Emperor- MOTHS. — Noted for the brilliancy of their 
coloring. 



40 THE PRINCESS: [prologue 

At this upon the sward 
She tapped her tiny silken-sandaled foot : 
'That's your light way ; but I would make it death 150 
For any male thing but to peep at us.' 

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laughed ; 
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, 
And sweet as English air could make her, she ; 
But Walter hailed a score of names upon her, 155 

And 'petty Ogress,' and 'ungrateful Puss,' 
And swore he longed at college — only longed, 
All else was well — for she-society. 
They boated and they cricketed ; they talked 
At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics ; 160 

They lost their weeks ; they vexed the souls of deans ; 
They rode ; they betted ; made a hundred friends, 
And caught the blossom of the flying terms : 
But missed the mignonette of Vivian-place, 

150-151. The death penalty for intrusion was adopted in 
the Academy. See II, 178. 

156. Ogress. — A female demon given to devouring hu- 
mans. This name is suggested by her breathing death against 
all intruding males. 

158. She-society. Cf. 'she-world,' III, 147. 

160. Cf. Apostles' Club of Cambridge. 

161. Lost their weeks. — Could not count certain weeks 
towards their degrees. At an English university residence 
for so many terms is required for a degree, and absence for a 
certain proportion of time debars that term from 'counting.' 

163. Blossom — not the fruit. — That is enough time to 
'count,' but not enough to be profitable. 

164. Mignonette. — The name of this flower is the diminu- 
tive of mignon, delicate, graceful, etc. 



prologue] a medley. 41 

The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, 105 

Part banter, part affection. 

'True,' she said, 
'We doubt not that. O yes, you missed us much. 
I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did.' 

She held it out ; and as a parrot turns 
Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye, 170 

And takes a lady's finger with all care. 
And bites it for true heart and not for harm, 
So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shrieked 
And wrung it. 'Doubt my word again !' he said. 
'Come, listen ! here is proof that you were missed : 175 
We seven stayed at Christmas up to read ; 
And there we took one tutor as to read ; 
The hard-grained Muses of the cube and square 
Were out of season; never man, I think, 
So moldered in a sinecure as he ; 180 

For while our cloisters echoed frosty feet, 
And our long walks were stripped as bare as brooms, 
We did but talk you over, pledge you all 

165. Hearth flower.— C/. 'household flower/ V, 122. 
170. Cf. The Day Dream, 36. 
172. True heart.— Affection. 

176. Stayed up ... to read.— Remained at the Univer- 
sity to study. 

177. As. — As if. 

178. Mathematics. Was the periphrasis needed here? 
180. Sinecure.— An office with emolument and no duties, 

such as the tutor held. 

182. Complete the construction of this line. 



42 THE PRINCESS: [prologue 

In wassail ; often, like as many girls, 

Sick for the hollies and the yews of home — 185 

As many little trifling Lilias — played 

Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, [Hozv? 

And IV hat's my thought f and IV hen and Where and 

And often told a tale from mouth to mouth. 

As here at Christmas.' 

She remembered that; 190 

A pleasant game she thought ; she liked it more 
Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 
But these — what kind of tales did men tell men, 
She wondered, by themselves? 

A half-disdain 
Perched on the pouted blossom of her lips; 195 

And Walter nodded at me: 'He began, 
The rest would follow, each in turn ; and so 
We forged a sevenfold story. Kind? what kind? 
Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms, 

184. Wassail. — Wes Hal, be hale or well. In Mcmoriam, 
CV, 5. 

185. Cf. In Mcmoriam, XXIX, 9; XXX. 2. 

189. Note that this reveals the form of the present tale told 
by the seven. Cf. 9, 178, 198, 221, etc., and Conclusion, 8. 

195. Probably suggestive of color. Cf. CEnone, 6. 

196-198. Indicates the manner in which The Princess is 
to be related. Cf. Interlude, 16, and Conclusion, 8. 

199. Chimeras. — The Great Chimera was a fire-breathing 
monster, part lion and goat in front, and dragon behind. 
Hence any incongruous and absurd creation. Solecism. — 
Something originating at Soli, not at Athens; hence an im- 
propriety, something ridiculous. 



prologue] a medley. 



43 



Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 200 

Time by the fire in winter.' 

'Kill him now, 
The tyrant ! kill him in the summer too,' 
Said Lilia; 'Why not now?' the maiden Aunt. 
'Why not a summer's as a winter's tale? 
A talc for summer as befits the time, 205 

And somethmg it should be to suit the place, 
Heroic — for a hero lies beneath — 
Grave, solemn !' 

Walter warped his mouth at this 
To something so mock-solemn, that I laughed. 
And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth 210 

An echo like a ghostly woodpecker 
Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt 
(A little sense of wrong had touched her face 
With color) turned to me with 'As you will; 

200. The purpose of the Christmas Story (The Winter's 
Tale, cf. 231) was to kill time. This 'summer's tale' is to be 
a heroic medley. See 205 ff. 

204 ff. Cf. with this, Concl., 10-20, for the conflict in opin- 
ion between the men and the women as to what nature the 
story should have. 

210. Cf. V, 241 ; Vn, 31 ; Madeline, 35; Elaine, 327, etc. 

211. This (cf. 231) figure in which the 'echo' of laughter 
is made to sound 'like a ghostly woodpecker' seems inexpli- 
cably incongruous. 

214. Tennyson beyond doubt has in mind two of Shakes- 
peare's plays. Love's Labor's Lost, as suggesting the scheme 
of his poem, and The Winter's Tale, as suggesting its form, a 
medley not preserving unity of place, time, or action. He 
seems to play upon the titles of two others, As You Like 
It and Twelfth Night; or What You Will. 



44 THE PRINCESS: ' [prologue 

Heroic if yOU will, or what you will, 215 

Or be yourself your hero if you will/ 

'Take Lilia, then, for heroine,' clamored he, 
'And make her some great Princess, six feet high, 
Grand, epic, homicidal ; and be you 
The Prince to win her!' 

'Then follow me, the Prince/ 220 
I answered ; 'each be hero in his turn ! 
Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. 
Heroic seems our Princess as required ; 
But something made to suit with time and place, 
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 225 

A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 
A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 
And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments 
For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all — 
These were a medley ! we should have him back 230 
Who told the 'Winter's Tale' to do it for us. 

218. Cf. V, 244 ff and 264; cf. 40. 

222. Here, as in line 199 and elsewhere, the poet deprecates 
that kind of criticism that looks for incongruities, incon- 
sistencies, etc. After all, it is a 'Midsummer Night's 
Dream.' 

225-228. Have all these details been mentioned in the Pro- 
logue? 

229. Had. — Would have, because they were signs of the 
black art. 

230. Were. — Would be, if so mixed. 

230. This characterizes the poem. 

231. Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale; cf. 204. 



prologue] a medley. 45 

No matter ; we will say whatever comes. 
And let the ladies sing us, if they will, 
From time to time, some ballad or a song 
To give us breathing-space." 

So I began, 
And the rest followed ; and the women sang 
Between the rougher voices of the men, 
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind; 
And here I give the story and the songs. 

232. The tale is to be an improvisation, but is afterwards 
dressed up poetically. See Concl., 5. 

238. Cf. Shelley's Letter to Maria Gisborne: 

' The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill 
The empty pauses ot the blast. ' 

Cf. The Miller's Daughter, i22''3. 

" And in the pauses of the wind 
Sometimes T heard you sing within." 

233-238. This suggests only one part of the purpose in the 
intercalary and plot songs to be discussed below. 



235 



46 THE PRINCESS: [canto i 



I. 

[THE VENTURE ON THE LIBERTIES] 

[The Prince, upon reaching man's estate, demands his 
bride betrothed to him as a child, but she refuses to wed. 
He wishes to go for her, but his request is refused, so with 
Cyril and Florian he steals away. They learn from Gama, 
father of the Princess, that she has founded near the borders 
of the Prince's prospective kingdom a university for women 
only. With his friends he determines to find her, and, dis- 
guising themselves as women, they seek enrollment as Lady 
Psyche's pupils— Ed.] 

A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, 
Of temper amorous, as the first of May, 
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl, 
For on my cradle shone the Northern star. 

There lived an ancient legend in our house. 
Some sorcerer, whom a far-of¥ grandsire burnt 
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold, 

I. Waugh calls the prince Hilarion, but without good 
reason. 

3. The prince was a blond ; the princess a brunette. Cf. 38. 

6. Cf. Prl., 229. 

7. Cf. Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl. 

7-9. The prince who exemplified the truth of this predic- 
tion, and was. moreover, the subject of 'weird seizures,' 
undergoes a complete change (cf. VII, T,2y fif) when the new 
dawn of Ida's love (her essential charge) breaks. 



CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 47 

Dying, that none of all our blood should know 

The shadow from the substance, and that one 

Should come to fight with shadows and to fall. 10 

For so, my mother .said, the story ran. 

And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, 

An old and strange affection of the house. 

Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows what : 

On a sudden In the midst of men and day, 15 

And while I walked and talked as heretofore, 

I seemed to move among a world of ghosts, 

And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 

Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head cane, 

And pawed his beard, and muttered 'catalepsy/ 20 

My mother, pitying, made a thousand prayers ; 

9. Cf. The story of Narcissus. 

12, Cf. Prl., 222. 

14. Weird seizures.— Note the references and occurrences 
and determine what they were, how induced, etc. Cf. In 
Memuriam, XCV, 9. Cf. The Ancient Sage, 229-239. For 
account of Tennyson's trances see Davidson's Prolegomena 
to In Memoriam. 

What is the artistic purpose of the 'weird seizures' intro- 
duced in the fourth edition in 1851 ? 'His too emotional tem- 
perament was j,ntended from an artistic point of view to em- 
phasize his comparative want of power.' — Memoir, Vol. I, p. 
251. This is Hallam Tennyson's explanation. If produced by 
love's doubts they are cured by love's certainty. 

18. The shadow of a dream. Ill, 172; Hamlet, II, 
ii, 265. 

19. Galen was a Greek physician (born Pergamus, A. D. 
130), who attended Marcus Aurelius. 

20. Catalepsy. — Was the Doctor right? 



48 THE PRINCESS: [canto i 

My mother was as mild as any saint, 

Half-canonized by all that looked on her, 

So gracious was her tact and tenderness; 

But my good father thought a king a king; 25 

He cared not for the affection of the house ; 

He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand 

To lash offense, and with long arms and hands 

Reached out, and picked offenders from the mass 

For judgment. 

Now it chanced that I had been, 30 

While life was yet in bud and blade, betrothed 
To one, a neighboring Princess ; she to me 
Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf 
At eight years old ; and still from time to time 
Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 35 

And of her brethren, youths of puissance ; 
And still I wore her picture by my heart, 

22. This description is supplemented in Canto VII, 298-308. 
Compare this with the description of the mother of the 
Princess. 

25. Father.— C/. IV. 387-397; V, 144-160, 342-350, 4^8- 
456; and contrast with the description of Gama. 

S3. Proxv-wedded to a bootless calf. — That is, espoused 
without her legal consent (V, 388-'9) by a certain 'kind of 
ceremony' (122-123). This precontract did not amount to 
marriage. The ceremony referred to by Gama, V, 122, and 
here recalled by the words 'bootless calf (i. e., leg stript 
naked to the knee) is described in Bacon's History of Henry 
VH. (See Spalding's Edition, Vol. XL) . . 

35. Cf. IV, 411, 416, etc. 

36. Cf. V, 244-'6. 

37. Cf. VII, 319. 



CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 49 

And one dark tress ; and all around them both 
Sweet thoughts would swarm, as bees about their 
queen. 

But when the days drew nigh that I should wed, 40 
My father sent ambassadors with furs 
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her ; these brought back 
A present, a great labor of the loom ; 
And therewithal an answer vague as wind ; 
Besides, they saw the king; he took the gifts; 45 

He said there was a compact ; that was true ; 
But then she had a will — was he to blame? — 
And maiden fancies ; loved to live alone 
Among her women ; certain, would not wed. 

That morning in the presence room I stood 50 

With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends: 

38. Cf. 3 and note. 

41. Furs.— Not needed in the Princess' home, but charac- 
teristic of the North. 

43. Labor of the loom. Cf. 'wonder of the loom,' 
(Homer's Iliad). 

46. Compact. — Cf. ZZ- 

47. Cf. V. 341. This is the essential characteristic of Ida. 

48. Maiden fancies.— Does this refer to her whole plan to 
found an academy, etc. ? Cf. 145 ff- 

49. Certain would not wed. — This, taken in connection 
with V, 341, suggests that here, as in Shakespeare's Taming 
of the Shrew, the contest is that of wills. 

51. See the preliminary account of the personages in the 
poem. 



50 THE PRINCESS: [canto i 

The first, a gentleman of broken means 

(His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts 

Of revel ; and the last, my other heart, 

And almost my half-self, — for still we moved 55 

Together, twinned as horse's ear and eye. 

Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face 
Grow long and troubled, like a rising moon. 
Inflamed with wrath; he started on his feet, 
Tore the king's letter, snowed it down, and rent ^^ 

The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof 
From skirt to skirt ; and at the last he sware 
That he would send a hundred thousand men, 
And bring her in a whirlwind ; then he chewed 
The thrice-turned cud of wrath, and cooked his spleen, ^5 
Communing with his captains of the war. 

At last I spoke. *My father, let me go. 
It cannot be but some gross error lies 
In this report, this answer of a king 
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable; 7o 

Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, 

53. For an illustration see the climax, IV, 137 ff. 
56. Little can be said in praise of the artistic value of this 
figure. 

61. Cf. note on 43. 

62. What is the present form of this preterit? 

64-65. Chewed the cud, etc. — This is symbolic. The 
figurative meaning is ruminate, meditate. 

6s. Cooked his spleen. — Kept his anger warm, nursed his 
wrath. 



CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 



51 



75 



Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame, 

May rue the bargain made.' And Florian said : 

*I have a sister at the foreign court, 

Who moves about the Princess ; she, you know, 

Who wedded with a nobleman from thence , 

He, dying lately, left her, as I hear, 

The lady of three castles in that land ; 

Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean.' 

And Cyril whispered: 'Take me with you too.' 80 

Then, laughing, 'What if these weird seizures come 

Upon you in those lands, and no one near 

To point you out the shadow from the truth? 

Take me ; I'll serve you better in a strait ; 

I grate on rusty hinges here ;' but 'No !' 85 

Roared the rough king, 'you shall not; we ourself 

Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead 

In iron gauntlets; break the council up.' 

But when the council broke, I rose and passed 
Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town; go 

Found a still place, and plucked her likeness out ; 

^2. Less than fame (reports her). As a matter of fact 
he found her far greater than fame. Cf. IV, 424 ff. 

74. Sister.— Lady Psyche. Cf. II, 99. 

78. Is Florian's reference to his sister's fortune of any 
significance in inducing Cyril to go? Cf. II, 100; 193. 

85. I GRATE ON RUSTY HINGES.— I moldcr, I wear out, 
etc. 

87. Maiden fanctes. — Cf. 48. 

90. Hung. — Frequently used in this sense. 

91. Cf. 2>7- 



52 



THE PRINCESS: [canto i 



Laid it on flowers, and watched it lying bathed 

In the green gleam of dewy-tasseled trees: 

What were those fancies ? wherefore break her troth ? ^5 

Proud looked the lips; but while I meditated 

A wind arose and rushed upon the South, 

And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks 

Of the wild woods together; and a Voice 

Went with it, 'Follow, follow, thou shalt win.' 

100 
Then, ere the silver sickle of that month 

Became her golden shield, I stole from court 

With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived, 

Cat-footed thro' the town, and half in dread 

To hear my father's clamor at our backs, 

With 'Ho !' from some bay-window shake the night ; 

But all was quiet ; from the bastioned walls 

Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropped. 

And flying reached the frontier; then we crossed 

To a livelier land ; and so by tilth and grange, 

92. Bathed. — Cf. The Day Dream, 29. 

93. This suggests the season of the year. Cf. In Memo- 
riam, LXXXVI. 2, 

96-99. Collins finds in these lines a reminder of a quatrain 
from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, II, i, 156-159. Tenny- 
son did not recall the lines. His own first poetic line was, 
'I hear a voice that's speaking in the wind.' 

100. Note the beauty of this expression for the change of 
the moon from first quarter to full. 

109. Tilth.— Tilled land. Cf. Milton's Paradise Lost, XI, 
430. Cf. Enoch Arden, 676. Grange. — A farm house. Cf. 
Mariana, 'The moated grange.' Shakespeare's Measure for 
Measure, III, 1. 27y, In Memoriam, XCI, 12, etc. 



CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 53 

And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, no 

We gained the mother-city thick with towers, 
And in the imperial palace found the king. 

His name was Gama ; cracked and small his voice, 
But bland the smile that, like a wrinkling wind 
On glassy water, drove his cheek in lines ; 115 

A little dry old man, without a star. 
Not like a king. Three days he feasted us. 
And on the fourth I spake of why we came, 
And my betrothed. 'You do us, Prince,' he said, 
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 120 

'All honor. We remember love ourselves 
In our sweet youth ; there did a compact pass 
Long summers back, a kind of ceremony — 
I think the year in which our olives failed. 
I would you had her. Prince, with all my heart, 125 

With my full heart ; but there were widows here, 
Two widows. Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche ; 
They fed her theories, in and out of place 
Maintaining that with equal husbandry 

no. Bosks. — Thickets, clumps of bushes. Cf. Shakes- 
peare's Tempest, IV, i, 81. 

III. Mother-city. — Metropolis. In Memoriam,XCVUl, 21. 

116. Without a star (as an insignia of rank). — Can it 
mean born without a favorable horoscope? 

121. Ourselves. — Cf. 'ourself,' V, 198; II, 46. 

124. The unkinglike character of the king may be seen in 
his associating the betrothal of his daughter with so prosaic 
an event as the failure of the olive crop. 

129. Husbandry. — Taken in connection with marriage 
here discussed, is this a play on words? 



54 THE PRINCESS: [canto I 

The woman were an equal to the man. 130 

They harped^on this; with this our banquets rang; 

Our dances broke and buzzed in knots of talk; 

Nothing but this ; my very ears were hot 

To hear them ; knowledge, so my daughter held, 

Was all in all ; they had but been, she thought, 135 

As children; they must lose the child, assume 

The woman; then, Sir, awful odes she wrote, 

Too awful, sure, for what they treated of, 

But all she is and does is awful ; odes 

About this losing of the child ; and rimes 140 

And dismal lyrics, prophesying change 

Beyond all reason ; these the women sang; 

And they that know such things — I sought but peace ; 

130. The theme of the poem. 

134. Knowledge, etc. — This, as Dawson says, is the central 
point of the Princess' delusion. But Tennyson is not de- 
ceived. In In Mcmoriam, CXIV, 22-23 and elsewhere in the 
same poem he distinguishes between knowledge and wisdom. 
This distinction is emphasized by sage and' poet. 

136. They must lose the child, assume the woman. 
Cf. Prl., 133; VII, 268. Second delusion. Cf. 134- The high 
wisdom of preserving childhood as life matures is lost sight 
of. The lyrics to be introduced have to do with childhood, 
and the dominant presence of Aglaia, Lady Psyche's child, 
keeps childhood in the reader's mind. It is the child, too, 
that changes the Princess. 

140. This suggests the proposed intercalary poem, 'The 
Losing of the Child,' which is replaced by the first intercalary 
poem describing the losing of a child -by death. Cf. The 
dismal lyrics and rhymes mentioned with the beautiful rhyme- 
less lyrics in this poem. 



CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 55 

No critic I — would call them masterpieces : 

They mastered me. At last she begged a boon, 145 

A certain summer palace which I have 

Hard by your father's frontier; I said no, 

Yet being an easy man, gave it ; and there. 

All wild to found an University 

For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more 150 

We know not, — only this: they see no men, 

Not even her brother Arac, nor the twins 

Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her 

As on a kind of paragon ; and I 

(Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed J55 

Dispute betwixt myself and mine, but since 

(And I confess with right) you think me bound 

In some sort, I can give you letters to her ; 

And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance 

Almost at naked nothing.' 

Thus the king; 160 

And I, tho' netded that he seemed to slur 
With garrulous ease and oily courtesies 
Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 

149. University, — This suggests the close analogy between 
this poem and Love's Labor's Lost. An University.— Change 
to present usage. 

151. This is the third delusion. 

152. Cf. 36; V, 245. 

155. Me. — Should this be "my"? 

i63-'4. 'All impediments serving only to aggravate my im- 
patience to meet my betrothed face to face.' — Wallace. Com- 
pare the following interpretation which is justified by the con- 
struction : All obstacles inflaming me with desire to find my 
bride. 



56 THE PRINCESS: [canto i 

But chafing me on fire to find my bride) 

Went forth again with both my friends. We rode 165 

Many a long league back to the North. At last, 

From hills that looked across a land of hope, 

We dropped with evening on a rustic town 

Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve, 

Close at the boundary of the liberties ; 170 

There, entered an old hostel, called mine host 

To council, plied him with his richest wines, 

And showed the late-writ letters of the king. 

He with a long low sibilation, stared 
As blank as death in marble; then exclaimed, 175 

Averring it was clear against all rules 
For any man to go ; but as his brain 
Began to mellow, Tf the king,' he said, 
'Had given us letters, was he bound to speak? 
The king would bear him out ;' and at the last — iSo 

The summer of the vine in all his veins — 
'No doubt that we might make it worth his while. 
She once had past that way ; he heard her speak ; 

168. Dropped. — Colloquial ; cf. Prl., 96. 
170. Liberties. 'Preserves' — territory within which the 
Princess and her company were at liberty to move. 

175. Cf. V, 71-72. 

175 ff. Trace the steps by which the host persuades himself 
to reveal what he knows. 

181. Cf. 'For now the wine made summer in his veins.' — 
Marriage of Geraint, 398. 

182-191. This is the garrulous and unrefined twaddle of a 
host half-seas over. 



CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 57 

She scared him ; life! he never saw the Hke; 

She looked as grand as doomsday, and as grave; 185 

And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there; 

He always made a point to post with mares ; 

His daughter and his housemaid were the boys ; 

The land, he understood, for miles about 

Was tilled by women ; all the swine were sows, 190 

And all the dogs' — 

But while he jested thus, 
A thought flashed thro' me which I clothed in act, 
Remembering how we three presented Maid, 
Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, 
In masque or pageant at my father's court. 195 

We sent mine host to purchase female gear ; 
H^ brought it, and himself, a sight to shake 
The midriff of despair with laughter, holp 
To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes 
We rustled. Him we gave a costly bribe 200 

To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, 
And boldly ventured on the liberties. 

193. This no doubt is suggested by college experiences. See 
Memoir, I, p. 48. 

195. Masque or pageant. — Read a brief description of 
these. 

196. Gear. — Cf. head gear, head dress. 

198. The midriff of despair. — To young readers this will 
recall the picture of Santa Claus shaking with laughter like 
a bowl of jelly. Cf. Shakespeare's i Henry IV, iii, 3. 

198. Holp. — Pronounced 'hope.' Used still by negroes 

201. Guerdon. — To reward. 

202. Cf. 170. 



58 THE PRINCESS: [canto i 

We followed up the river as we rode, 
And rode till midnight, when the college lights 
Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 205 

And linden alley ; then we past an arch, 
Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 
From four winged horses dark against the stars ; 
And some inscription ran along the front, 
But deep in shadow : further on we gained 210 

A little street, half garden and half house; 
But scarce could hear each other speak for noise 
Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling 
On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 
Of fountains spouted up and showering down 215 

In meshes of the jasmine and the rose; 
And all ahout us pealed the nightingale, 
Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare. 

There stood a hust of Pallas for a sign. 
By two sphere lamps blazoned like Heaven and Earth 220 

207-208. Recalling Nike, the goddess of Victory. 

209. For this inscription see II, 178. 

211. What mental picture do yon get of this street? 

217. Note different verbs used to suggest the nightingale's 
song. See IV, 247; In Memoriam, LXXXVIII. 

218. Rapt. — A favorite Tennysonian word. Cf. Prl., 50; 
IV, 162. 

218. In no fear of traps. 

219. Bust of Pallas. —Minerva (Athene), the Virgin 
Goddess. Even the statues of the Princess' University are 
all of females. 

220-221. That is, celestial and terrestrial globes. 



CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 59 

With constellation and with continent, 

Above an entry ; riding in, we called ; 

A plump-armed ostleress and a stable wench 

Came running at the call, and helped us down. 

Then slept a buxom hostess forth, and sailed, 225 

Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave 

Upon a pillared porch, the bases lost . 

In laurel ; her we asked of that and this, I 

And who were tutors. 'Lady Blanche,' she said, 

'And Lady Psyche.' 'Which was prettiest, 230 

Best-natured ?' 'Lady Psyche.' 'Hers are we/ 

One voice, we cried ; and I sat down and wrote, 

In such a hand as when a field of corn 

Bows all its ears before the roaring East : 

Three ladies of the Northern empire pray 235 

Your Highness would enroll them wiih your own, 

As Lady Psyche's pupils.' 

This I sealed ; 

The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, 

224. Determine from 204, 212, etc., the time. 

225. Buxom.— 'Brisk and healthy with a dash of good 
humor.' — Stormonth. 

226. Gave upon.— Opened (Gallicism). Cf. Prl., 93. 

227. The classic architecture noted Prl., 225 ; II, 8-14. etc. 
230. In spite of the grammarian's inhibition, the poets 

frequently use the superlative when referring to two. 

233-234. Picture to yourself this handwriting, and note 
that it is not only disguised, but feminine. Cf. Iliad, II, 
i47-'8. 

236. Would.— Cf. 'will.' Note tense sequence. 

238-240. The college seal. If you have any skill in draw- 
ing, make a sketch of this seal. 



6o THE PRINCESS: [canto i 

And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung, 

And raised the bhnding bandage from his eyes ; 240 

I gave the letter to be sent with dawn ; 

And then to bed, where half in doze I seemed 

To float about a glimmering night, and watch 

A full sea, glazed with muffled moonlight, swell 

On some dark shore just seen that it was rich. 245 

239. Uranian. — Heavenly. Cf. Milton's Paradise Lost, 
I, 6 and VH, i. Cf. M. Arnold's Urania. 

240. Note that in this poem the bandage over love's eyes 
is removed by love. Cf. V, 427; VH, loi, 143, etc. 

244. 'Suggestion : The Sea one night at Torquay.' — Ten- 
nyson. 

245. It is a pity that this first Canto should end with a 
line of questionable grammatical construction and of unclear 
interpretation. 



[THE RECONCILIATION.] 

As thro' the land at eve we went, 
And plucked the ripened ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
O we fell out, I know not why, 
And kissed again with tears. 

And blessings on the falling out 

That all the more endears, 
When we fall out with those we love, 

And kiss again with tears ! 

For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years, 
There above the little grave, 
O there above the little grave. 

We kissed again* with tears. 



[ 6i. ] 



FIRST INTERCALARY POEM. 

Tennyson in the tliird edition of The Princess published 
in 1850, his Golden Year in life and letters, added to the Pro- 
logue lines 233-238, in explanation of the intercalary songs, 
and then for the first time suggests two purposes of these 
songs: first, "to give us breathing space," and second, 'to 
relieve the rougher voices of men by the linnet songs of 
women.' These purposes are admirably served, for the neces- 
sary breaks between the cantos are thus beautifully filled and 
the reader's mind refreshed. But the poems are of value in at 
least two other respects. They relieve the reader's ear by 
the grateful change from the linked and almost monotonous 
sweetness of elaborately polished blank verse to the varied 
forms of perfectly finished lyrics. Better still, in a poem 
where the main problem is the escape from the dependence 
and thraldom of childhood, the losing of the child, these little 
poems keep before the reader the child-image and hint the 
child's omnipresent induence and power. 

This poem. Reconciliation, points to the past since it is 
memory of the child long lost that brings together the parents 
in blissful union over the little grave. The form of the poem 
has undergone several important changes. It was originally 
three-quatrains— the fourth line of the first and third stanzas 
were later additions — with the same rhyme of second and 
fourth line in each stanza. The second stanza w^as omitted in 
the edition of 1851, but, for some reason, hardly artistic, was 
restored in 1853. 



[62] 



A MEDLEY. 63 



II. 

[THE WOLVES WITHIN THE FOLD.] 

[Welcomed by the President, Princess Ida, they are sent 
to hear Lady Psyche's harangue on Woman's Position. She ^ 
recognizes them and extorts their promise to leave; but 
while they are conversing, Melissa overhears them, but prom- 
ises to keep the secret. The conference closes with Cyril's 
half avowal of love. These new students then surfeit them- 
selves with lectures, attend dinner, where Blanche watches 
them furtively, and mingle with the six-hundred. The full 
day ends with the chapel services. — Ed.] 

At break of day the College Portress came ; 

She brought us Academic silks, in hue 

The lilac, with a silken hood to each, 

And zoned with gold ; and now when these were on, 

And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, 5 

vShe, courtseying her obeisance, let us know 

The Princess Ida waited. Out we paced, 

I first, and following thro' the porch that sang 

3-4. Lilac and Gold.— Psyche's colors. It would be inter- 
esting to trace the color-scheme of this whole poem. Zoned. 
— Cf. Byron's Maid of Athens. 

5. Cf. Prl., 144. Use your first opportunity to examine 
the splendid combinations of colors in a collection of moths. 
Cf. Milton's Paradise Regained, IV, 76. 

7. Paced. — Note the mincing step of man in woman's 
dress. ^ 

8. Sang. — Rustled, rang. Does the word seem the best? 



64 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

All round with laurel, issued in a court 

Compact of lucid marbles, bossed with lengths lo 

Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 

Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers. 

The Muses and the Graces, grouped in threes, 

Enringed a billowing fountain in the midst ; 

And here and there on lattice edges lay i5 

Or book or lute ; but hastily we passed, 

And up a flight of stairs into the hall. 

There at a board by tome and paper sat, 
With two tame leopards couched beside her throne, 
All beauty compassed in a female form, 20 

The Princess; liker to the inhabitant 
Of some clear planet close upon the sun. 
Than our man's earth ; such eyes were in her head, 
And so much grace and power, breathing down 

10. Lucid marbles. — Clear, bright. Cf. VI, 331. Note 
'lucid stone,' Browning's Paracelsus; 'lucid urn,' Shelley's 
Adonais, XI, i. Bossed. — Embossed. 

10 ff. The 'medley' is emphasized by the difficulty of fixing 
upon any locality as consistent with the poem. This picture 
is almost tropical. 

13. Muses. — Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Melpomene, Terpsich- 
ore, Erato, Polyhymnia, Urania, and Thalia. Were these 
grouped in threes after any particular order? The Graces 
were Euphrosyne, Aglai'a, and Thalia. Are the Muse Thalia 
and the Grace Thalia identical? 

17. Hall. — For descriptions see 62, 71 ; 416; IV, 206; VI, 
334, etc. 

21. Begin here to collect details for a complete picture of 
the Princess' appearance. 



CANTO II] A MEDLEY. 65 

From over her arched brows, with every turn 25 

Lived thro' her to the tips of her long hands, 
And to her feet. She rose her height, and said: 

'We give you welcome; not without redound 
Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, 
The first-fruits of the stranger ; aftertime, 30 

And that full voice which circles round the grave, 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
What ! are the ladies of your land so tall ?' 
'We of the court,' said Cyril. 'From the court' 
She answered ; 'then ye know the Prince ?' and he : 35 
'The climax of his age ! as tho' there were 
One rose in all the world, your highness that, 
He worships your ideal.' She replied: 
'We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
This barren verbiage, current among men, 40 

Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 
Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem 
As arguing love of knowledge and of power; 

31. Fame.— Cf. Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost, I, i, 2; 
Milton's Lycidas, etc. 

32. Cf. V, 401. 

35. It is apparent from this question that the Princess has 
neither lost interest in the outside world nor in the Prince 
particularly. 

38. Your IDEAL.—His ideal (conception) of you; cf. Ill, 
193; IV, 130. 

43. Love of knowledge and of power. — Fourth delusion. 
In I, 134, there is no indication that the Princess admitted any 
power save in knowledge; here she distinguishes between 
them. In VII, 221, she learns that truth rather than power is 
to be sought in knowledge. 



66 THE PRINCESS : [canto ii 

Your language proves you still the child. Indeed, 

We dream not of him ; when we set our hand 45 

To this great work, we purposed. with ourself 

Never to wed. You likewise will do well, 

Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 

The tricks which make us toys of men, that so, 

Some future time, if so indeed you will, 50 

You may with those self-styled our lords ally 

Your fortunes justlier balanced, scale with scale.' 

At those high words, we, conscious of ourselves. 
Perused the matting ; then an officer 
Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these: 55 

Not for three years to correspond with home ; 
Not for three years to cross the liberties ; 
Not for three years to speak with any men ; 

44. The child. — Cf. Prl. 133; I, 136. This is a grave 
offense in the eyes of the Princess. 

45. Hardly consistent with the interested question in line 

35. 

48. Cast and fling. — Throw away. 

52. The desire for equality is the theme of the poem, as 
suggested in I, 130. This desire is met in VII, 290 ff. Cf. 
Eve's Third Temptation, Milton's Paradise Lost, IX, 820 ff. 

56. The laws of the Princess' University are analogous to 
those of the 'Academe' in Love's Labor's Lost, I, i, 33-48. 

1. "That is, to live and study here three years." 

2. "As, not to see a woman in that term." 

• » * * « * 

3. "And one day in a week to touch no food. 

And but one meal on every day beside." 

4. "And then, to sleep but three hours in the night, 

Andnot be seen to wink of all the day." 



CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. (^y 

And many more, which hastily subscribed, 

We entered on the boards ; and 'Now,' she cried, 60 

'Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall ! 

Our statues! — not of those that men desire, 

Sleek odalisques, or oracles of mode. 

Nor stunted squaws of West or East ; but she 

That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she 65 

The foundress of the Babylonian wall, 

The Carian Artemisia strong in war, 

The Rhodope that built the pyramid, 

60. Entered on the boards. — This is presumably a techni- 
cal phrase for registered as students, matriculated. 

62. 'The statues are there of eight of the most eminent 
women of antiquity, representing respectively legislative sa- 
gacity, political enterprise, military prowess, architectural 
skill, physical courage, intellectual culture, imperial ambition, 
and wifely devotion.' — Wallace. 

63. Odalisques. — Female slaves of a harem. Oracles of 
Mode. — Patterns of fashion. 

64. She. — Egeria, who was supposed to have instructed 
Numa, a Sabine King of Rome. Cf. Palace of Art ; Byron's 
Childe Harold, IV, CXV-CXIX. 

66. Foundress. — Semiramis, wife of King Ninus, and 
queen of Assyria, famed for her military prowess. She was 
queen of Babylonia when Pyramus wooed Thisbe. Cf. Shakes- 
peare's Midsummer Night's Dream, III, i, 1-104, and V, i, 
128 ff., etc. 

67. Artemisia. — Queen of Caria; a distinguished ally of 
Xerxes in the battle of Salamis. Cf. Herodotus, VIII, 87. 

68. Rhodope. — "It has been shown by Bunsen and others 
that 'the Rhodope that built the pyramid' was Nitocris, the 
beautiful Egyptian queen, who was the heroine of so many 
legends." (Wharton, Sappho, p. 6.) Cf. Landor's ^sop and 
Rhodope in the Imaginary Conversations, 



68 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

Clelia, Cornelia, with the Pahnyrene 

That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows "^^ 

Of Agripplna. Dwell with these, and lose 

Convention, since to look on noble forms 

Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism 

That which is higher. O lift your natures up; 

Embrace our aims ; work out your freedom. Girls, 75 

Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed ; 

Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 

The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 

And slander, die. Better not be at all 

Than not be noble. Leave us ; you may go ; ^° 

To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 

69. Clelia. — One of the virgin hostages given to Porsena. 
Because of her gallantry she was released. The Romans 
erected a statue to her. Cornelia. — To her a statue was 
erected with the inscription, 'Cornelia, the Mother of the 
Gracchi.' Palmyrene. — Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, was 
defeated by Aurelian. 

71. Agrh'PINA. — Granddaughter of Augustus and wife of 
Germanicus. Noted for her culture and her household devo- 
tion. 

71-74. Cf. Prov. >»iii, 20; Acts iv, 3; Romans xii, 2. 

72. Convention. — Cf. Prl., 128. 

72-74. Cf. Shelley; Prince Athanase, II, i, 15: 'The mind 
becomes that which it contemplates.' Cf. Romans xii, 2; 2 
Cor. iii, 18. 

75-76. Cf. V, 409, 413- 

77. Drink deep. — Cf. Pope's Essay on Criticism, II. 15. 

78-79. Is this a catalogue of feminine vices? 

81. Harangue. — Is this intended to suggest the incoher- 
ent character of female thought and expression? Substitute 
another word. 



CANTO II] A MEDLEY. 69 

The fresh arrivals of the week before ; 
For they press in from all the provinces, 
And fill the hive.' 

She spoke, and bowing waved 
Dismissal ; back again we crossed the court 85 

To Lady Psyche's. As we entered in, 
There sat along the forms, like morning doves 
That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, 
A patient range of pupils ; she herself 
Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, 90 

A quick brunette, well-molded, falcon-eyed, 
And on the hither side, or so she looked, 
Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
In shining draperies, headed like a star, 
Her maiden babe, a double April old, 95 

Aglaia slept. We sat ; the Lady glanced ; 
Then Florian— but no livelier than the dame 

84. HIVE.-C/. IV, 514- 

87. Forms.— Benches. Doves.— Cf. IV, 150. 

90. Note the exquisite school-room furniture. To begin 
with, a satin-wood desk, 

91. Contrast this picture with that of Lady Blanche, 424- 

92. Hither side.— Less than twenty years old. Her age 
given by summers, the child's by springs (95). Cf. Ida's age, 

VI, 234. 

94. Shining draperies. — VL 118. ^' 

96. Aglaia.— Named after one of the Graces, 13. 

96. Glanced.— Does this imply recognition? See 285. 

97-98. In classic Mythology it is Midas' hairdresser who 
digs a hole in the ground and confides to it the secret that 
his master has ass's ears, but Tennyson follows the Chaucer 
version in the Wife of Bath's Tale. 



yo THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

That whispered 'Asses' ears' among the sedge— 

'My sister.' 'Comely, too, by all that's fair,' 

Said Cyril. 'O hush, hush !' and she began. icx) 

'This world was once a fluid haze of light. 
Till toward the centre set the starry tides. 
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
The planets ; then the monster, then the man ; 
Tattooed or woaded, winter-clad in skins, 105 

Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate ; 
As yet we find in barbarous isles, — and here 
Among the lowest.' 

Thereupon she took 
A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past; 
Glanced at the legendary Amazon 110 

loi. This nebular hypothesis, hinted at by the ancients, 
was first set forth by Laplace, about the beginning of the 
nineteenth century. Cf. Tennyson's references to it, IV, i. 
In Memoriam, LXXXIX, 12; CXVIII, 3- 
the order of creation with Genesis i ; Milton's Paradise Lost, 
VII, 242, 547. 

loi. Compare with Prior's Alma, I, 369, 378. This speech 
of Lady Psyche's, on Woman's State, deals with Hypothesis, 
Tradition, History, and Prophecy, as related to woman. 

105. WoADED. — Dyed with woad, a plant from which a blue 
coloring matter was extracted. 

106. From the prime. — Originally. Cf. In Memoriam, 
XLIII; LVI. 

no. Amazon. — One of the Asiatic tribe of female war- 
riors. Frequent references in Shakespeare ; King John, V, 
ii; Midsummer Night's Dream, II, ii ; i Henry VI, i, 4. 
Read some description of these warriors. 



115 



CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. yi 

As emblematic of a nobler age; 

Appraised tiic Lycian custom, spoke of those 

That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo ; 

Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines 

Of empire, and the woman's state in each. 

How far from just; till, warming with her theme, 

She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique, 

And little-footed China ; touched on Mahomet 

With much contempt, and came to chivalry, 

When some respect, however slight, was paid 120 

To woman — superstition all awry ; 

However, then commenced the dawn ; a beam 

Had slanted forward, falling in a land 

Of promise; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed, 

Their debt of thanks to her who first had dared 125 

To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, 

Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 

112. Lycian custom. — The Lycians reckoned ancestry en- 
tirely by the maternal line. Does 'appraised' equal 'praised' ? 

113. Lar and Lucumo, i. e.. Lord and Prince. 

117. Fulmined. — Thundered. Milton's Paradise Regained, 
IV, 270. Laws Salique {Cf. Henry V, i, n) forbid female 
inheritance. 

118-119. Mahomet. — With much contempt. Why? Be- 
cause he once denied that women had souls, or because he 
supposed hell chiefly peopled with women, or because of his 
sensual conception of heaven? 

121. This phrase should stand grammatically next to 're- 
spect,' and thus explain its nature, 

125. Tribute to Ida. 

126. Cf. In Memoriam, CXI, 8. 



^2 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

None lordlier than themselves but that which made 

Woman and man. She had founded ; they must build. 

Here might they learn whatever men were taught; 130 

Let them not fear. Some said their heads were less ; 

Some men's were small ; not they the least of men ; 

For often fineness compensated size ; 

Besides, the brain was like the hand, and grew 

With using; thence the man's, if more, was more. 135 

He took advantage of his strength to be 

First in the field ; some ages had been lost ; 

But woman ripened earlier, and her life 

Was longer; and albeit their glorious names 

Were fewer, scattered stars, yet since in truth 140 

The highest is the measure of the man, 

And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, 

Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, 

But Homer, Plato, Verulam ; even so 

With woman. And in arts of government 1^5 

Elizabeth and others ; arts of war 

The peasant Joan and others ; arts of grace 

128. That which. — Him who, i. c, God. Is the form 
intended to hint at Psyche's behef in a creative force rather 
than a creating Person? 

129. Order of superiority not of creation. 

130. Reproductive rather than original 367; Prl, 136. 

143. Note this poetic variation of 'horny handed sons of 
toil.' 

144. Do these three measure Tennyson's conception of 
man's greatness? See Palace of Art. 

146. Elizabeth. — The Virgin Queen (1558- 1603). 

147. Joan. — Cf. Schiller, Lamartine, DeQuincey, etc. 



CANTO ii] . A MEDLEY. 



11 



Sappho and others, vied with any man \ 

And, last not least, she who had left her place, 

And bowed her state to them, that they might grow jg^ 

To use and power on this oasis, lapt 

In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 

Of ancient influence and scorn. 

At last 
She rose upon a wind of prophecy, 

Dilating on the future: 'Everywhere 155 

Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, 
Two in the tangled business of the world. 
Two in the liberal offices of life. 
Two plummets dropped for one to sound the abyss 
Of science, and the secrets of the mind ; j^^ 

Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more; 
And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth 
Should bear a double growth of those rare souls, 
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world.' 

She ended here, and beckoned us ; the rest 165 

Parted ; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she 

148. Sappho. — 'The Poetess.' She seems to have been a 
favorite of Tennyson. Cf. Leonine Elegiacs, 13; Eleanore, 
127, 141, etc. 

149. Ida is put in this same class of heroines. 

150. Bowed her state, i. e., stooped to conquer. 

151. Lapt,— C/". Milton's L' Allegro, 136. 
155 ff. Cf. VII, 239 ff. 

164. Cf. Prl., 132, III, 256; VII, 159. Cf. also The Poet; 
The Poet's Mind, etc. 

166. Full-faced welcome. — Because they were new pupils 



I70 



74 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

Began to address us, and was moving en 

In gratulation, till, as when a boat 

Tacks, and the slackened sail flaps, all her voice 

Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried, 

*My brother!' 'Well, my sister.' 'O,' she said, 

'What do you here? and in this dress? and these? 

Why, who are these ? a wolf within the fold ! 

A pack of wolves ! the Lord be gracious to me ! 

A plot, a plot, a plot, to ruin all !' 175 

*No plot, no plot,' he answered. 'Wretched boy, 

How saw you not the inscription on the gate, 

Let no man enter in on pain of death'? 

'And 'if I had,' he answered, 'who could think 

The softer Adams of your Academe, 180 

O sister, Sirens tho' they be, were such 

As chanted on the blanching bones of men?' 

'But you will find it otherwise,' she said. 



or because she recognized them? If she recognized them, 
did she break dovv'n in her attempt to conceal the fact? 

171. Is this her first recognition of her brother, or her first 
confession of it? 

178. Cf. Dante's Inferno. 'All hope abandon, ye who enter 
here.' 

179. He had not read it because of darkness. I, 209. 

180. Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost, I, i, 13. Name 
borrowed from Plato's school at Athens. Softer Adams, 
i. e., effeminate men ; points to inferiority and false con- 
ception of themselves. 

181. Sirens. — Muses who, by their sweet singing, enticed 
sea-farers to destruction, IV, 44-48; Odyssey, XII; Moore's 
Song of the Sirens; Rossetti's Sea Spell; Heine's Lorelei, etc. 



CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. 75 

'You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools ! My vow 

Binds nie to speak, and O that iron will, 185 

That axe-like edge unturnable, our Head, 

The Princess.' 'Well then, Psyche, take my life, 

And nail me like a weasel on a grange 

For warning; bury me beside the gate, 

And cut this epitaph above my bones : 190 

Here lies a brother by a sister slain, 

All for the common good of womankind* 

'Let me die too,' said Cyril, 'having seen 

And heard the Lady Psyche.' 

I struck in : 
'Albeit so masked, Madam, I love the truth ; - j^^ 

Receive it ; and in me behold the Prince 
Your countryman, affianced years ago 
To the Lady Ida ; here, for here she was. 
And thus (what other way was left?) I came.' 
'O Sir, O Prince, I have no country, none ; 200 

If any, this; but none. Whate'er I was 
Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 

184. Ill jesting with edge-tools.— Beaumont and 
Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune, II, 2. What is the origin 
of this proverb? 

185. Iron will. — Characterization of Ida, I, 47; VI, 102, 
etc. 

188. Grange. — Barn, granary. Cf. I, 109. 

193. An echo of the Nunc Dimittis. Cyril first introduces 
himself to Lady Psyche by subtle flattery. 

195. In spite of my enacted falsehood I love the truth. 

198-199. The prince's comment on her exclamation 'a 
plot,' 175. 



205 



^6 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

Affianced, Sir? Love-whispers may not breathe 

Within this vestal Hmit, and how should I, 

Who am not mine, say, hve? The thunderbolt 

Hangs silent; but prepare; I speak ; it falls.' 

*Yet pause,' I said : 'for that inscription there, 

I think no more of deadly lurks therein 

Than in a clapper clapping in a garth, 

To scare the fowl from fruit; if more there be, oio 

If more and acted on, what follows? war ; 

Your own work marred ; for this your Academe, 

Whichever side be victor, in the halloo 

Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass 

With all fair theories only made to gild 215 

A stormless summer.' *Let the Princess judge 

Of that,' she said; 'farewell, Sir — and to you. 

I shudder at the sequel, but I go.' 

'Are you that Lady Psyche,' I rejoined, 
*The fifth in line from that old Florian — 220 

Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall 
(The gaunt old Baron with his beetle brow 

204. Vestal limits. — Territory consecrated to hearts free 
from all thoughts of earthly love. 

205. Cf. Prl., 43. 

207. For, i. c, as for. 

209. Garth. — Garden. 

214. Unsubstantially built this Academe will totter and fall 
amid any noise of war. Cf. The fall of Jericho in Joshua vi, 
20. 

222. Beetle brow. — Having prominent or projecting 
brows. 



CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. 77 

Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) 

As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell, 

And all else fled ? we point to it, and we say, 225 

The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold, 

But branches current yet in kindred veins.' 

'Are you that Psyche,' Florian added ; 'she 

With whom I sang about the morning hills, 

Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly, 230 

And snared the squirrel of the glen? are you 

That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow, 

To smooth my pillow, mix the foaming draught 

Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read 

My sickness down to happy dreams? are you 235 

That brother-sister Psyche, both in one? 

You were that Psyche, but what are you now?' 

'You are that Psyche,' Cyril said, 'for whom 

I would be that for ever which I seem, 



22^. Sun-shaded. This may mean browned or burnt by 
exposure to the sun, but it would seem naturally to mean 
protected from the stm (not by the uplifted hand, as Wallace 
suggests), but by the helmet. 

224. Bestrode (for defense). — Cf. Shakespeare's Com- 
edy of Errors, V, i, 192; i Henry IV, V, i, 122, etc. 

227. Current. — This might mean 'at present.' It probably 
means, however, 'running.' 

229. Morning hills. Cf. CEnone, 46; Shakespeare's 
Henry V, IV, ii, 40; Taming of the Shrew, II, i, 174, 
etc. 

238-241. Is Cyril prompted by desire of gain? I, 75, 80. 
Is he in love? gg. Is he bantering Psyche? 193. Or is he 
trying to save his life? 193-194. 



245 



250 



78 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

Woman, if I might sit beside your feet, 240 

And glean your scattered sapience.' 

Then once more, 
'Are you that Lady Psyche,' I began, 
'That on her bridal morn, before she past 
From all her old companions, when the king 
Kissed her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties 
Would still be dear beyond the southern hills; 
That were there any of our people there 
In want or peril, there was one to hear 
And help them ? Look ! for such are these and L' 
'Are you that Psyche,' Florian asked, 'to whom, 
In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn 
Came flying while you sat beside the well ? 
The creature laid his muzzle on your lap, 
And sobbed, and you sobbed with it, and the blood 
Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept. 
That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept. 
O by the bright head of my little niece, 
You were that Psyche, and what are you now ?' 
'You are that Psyche,' Cyril said again, 

240. Woman. — This word is not vocative, but is the com- 
plement of T seem.' 

241. Sapience is wisdom, but does Cyril mean to limit her 
wisdom to disconnected and incoherent gleanings? 

251. Compare the story of SUvia's Pet Stag, ^ncid, VII, 
483-504. 

254. Sobbed. — This recalls 'the sobbing deer' of Shakes- 
peare's As You Like It, II, i, 66, and reminds the reader of 
the sympathy of melancholy Jacques, 

255. Kirtle.— Short skirt. 



255 



CANTO II] A MEDLEY. 79 

The mother of the sweetest little maid 260 

That ever crowed for kisses.' 

'Out upon It!' 
She answered, 'peace ! and why should I not play 
The Spartan Mother with emotion, be 
The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind? 
Him you call great ; he for the common weal, 265 

The fading politics of mortal Rome, 
As I might slay this child, If good need were. 
Slew both his sons; and I, shall I, on whom 
The secular emancipation turns 

Of half this world, be swerved from right to save 270 
A prince, a brother? A little will I yield ; 
Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. 
O hard, when love and duty clash ! I fear 

260. Cyril is an adept in insinuating Hattery. By every 
speech he ingratiates himself with Psyche. 

263. Spartan Mother.— She gave her seven sons to the 
cause of Sparta, and, though they perished, shouted 'Victory!' 
This may have no more specific reference than to deal with 
emotions as Spartans were taught to do, namely, sacrifice 
them. 

264. Lucius Junius Brutus.— The Roman father who 
had his own sons executed for violation of law. For an illus- 
tration of stern and uncompromising justice she refers to a 
man. Are there any other masculine illustrations? 

266. Fading . . . mortal.— These suggest transiency. 

269. Secular.— In contrast with above, suggests perma- 
nency for ages. Lat. seculiim. In Memoriam, XLI, 6; 
LXXVI, 2. 

271. There is a striking omission of a third, neither prince 
nor brother, but lover. 

273. Cf. Love and Duty. 



8o THE PRINCESS : [canto ii 

My conscience will not count me fleckless ; yet — 

Hear my conditions : promise (otherwise 275 

You perish), as you came, to slip away 

To-day, to-morrow, soon ; it shall be said. 

These women were too barbarous, would not learn ; 

They fled, who might have shamed us ; promise, all.' 

What could we else? we promised each; and she, 280 
Like some wild creature newly-caged, commenced 
A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused 
By Florian ; holding out her lily arms 
Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said: 
T knew you at the first ; tho' you have grown, 285 

You scarce have altered ; I am sad and glad 
To see you, Florian. / give thee to death, 
My brother! it was duty spoke, not I. 
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. 
Our mother, is she well ?' 

With that she kissed 290 

His forehead, then, a moment after, cluns: 
About him, and betwixt them blossomed up 
From out a common vein of memory 



274. Fleckless.— Without spot. Cf, 'taintless,' Hamlet, 
I, V, 85. 

285. Cf. 166 and 171. 

289. Seeming harshness. ^That is, not harshness, though 
before the others it was needful that it should seem so. 

290. Compare Joseph's inquiry. Genesis xlv, 3. 
292-293. Blossomed , . , from a vein,-^Is this a mixed 

metaphor ? 



CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. 8l 

Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, 
And far allusion, till the gracious dews 295 

Began to glisten and to fall: and while 
They stood, so rapt, we gazmg, came a voice: 
*I brought a message here from Lady Blanche/ 
Back started she, and turning round we saw 
The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood, 300 

Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, 
A rosy blonde, and in a college gown 
That clad her like an April daffodilly 
(Her mother's color), with her lips apart, 
And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes 305 

As bottom agates, seen to wave and float 
In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 
So stood that same fair creature at the door. 

295. Gracious dews.— Tears. Cf. Shakespeare's Julius 
Caesar, III, ii, 198; and King John, V, ii, 45> for the ex- 
pression. 

297. Rapt. — A favorite Tennysonian word. Cf. 419, and 
compare meaning in IV, 162. 

299. She, Psyche. 

302. Blonde.— CA description of Lady Blanche, 425-426. 
Is Blanche a blonde? 

303. April daffodilly. — There seems to be no particular 
appropriateness in 'clad her like a daffodilly.' But in color 
like a daffodilly, i. e., yellow, would suggest Blanche's dis- 
tinctive dress. A comma after daffodilly would make 'her 
mother's color' refer to 'blonde,' and this too may be consis- 
tent with the facts. 

306. For similar thought see Tzvo Noble Kinsmen, I, i ; 
also Moore's Loves of the Angels. 

307. Cf. 229. 



82 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

Then Lady Psyche, 'Ah— Melissa— you ! 

You heard us?' and Melissa, 'O pardon me, 310 

I heard, I could not help it, did not wish: 

But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, 

Nor think I bear that heart within my breast, 

To give three gallant gentlemen to death.' 

T trust you,' said the other, 'for we two 3^5 

Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine: 

But yet your mother's jealous temperament — 

Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove 

The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear 

This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 320 

My honor, these their lives.' *Ah, fear me not,' 

Replied Melissa; 'no — I would not tell, 

No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness, 

No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things 

That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.' 325 

313. Melissa is evidently romantic and sentimental. Her 
interest in this convent-system is not instinctive, but derived 
by compulsion from Lady Blanche. Hence the revolt is 
easy. 

316. The figure is classic. Catullus, LXH, 49, 56; Ovid, 
Amor, II, XVI. Cf. also Shakespeare's Midsummer Nighi's 
Dream, 111, ii, 201; IV, i, 48; Comedy of Errors, II, ii, 
176. 

319. Danaid. — The Dana'ids murdered their husbands on 
their v^edding nights, and were compelled as punishment to 
pour water into vessels full of holes. This figure is too aca- 
demic to be in any wise colloquial. 

323. Astasia. — The companion of Pericles, noted for her 
learning. Cf. Landor's Pericles and Astasia. 

32s. Sheba. — Queen of Sheba. i Kings x; 2 Chronicles 



CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. 83 

'Be it so,' the other, 'that we still may lead 

The new light up, and culminate in peace ; 

For Solomon may come to Sheba yet/ 

Said Cyril, 'Madam, he the wisest man 

Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 330 

Of Lebanonian cedar: nor should you 

(Tho', Madam, you should answer, zve would ask) 

Less welcome find among us, if you came 

Among us, debtors for our lives to you. 

Myself for something more/ He said not what ; 335 

But 'Thanks,' she answered ; 'go ; we have been too 

long 
Together ; keep your hoods about the face ; 
They do so that affect abstraction here. 
Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; and hold 
Your promise ; all, I trust, may yet be well.' 340 

ix. For the use of Sheba, or Saba, as the name of the Queen, 
see Henry VIII, V, v. 

327. The new light. — 'New lights' was technically used 
to characterize religious seceders who claimed to have more 
and better light on religious questions. The new light here is 
the advanced view as to woman's sphere and power. 

328. Psyche's aim is not equality, but superiority. 

329. For the Bible story read i Kings v, 10. 

332. This parenthesis seems to mean this: Though, 
madam, you, a woman (Sheba), should answer the ques- 
tions that we men (Solomons) would ask; that is, should 
the Solomons ask questions and the Shebas answer 
them ? 

335. Lady Psyche readily imderstood the 'something more' 
he would not in the presence of others declare. 



84 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

We turned to go, but Cyril took the child, 
And held her round the knees against his waist, 
And blew the svvoln cheek of a trumpeter, 
While Psyche watched them, smiling, and the child 
Pushed her flat hand against his face and laughed ; 345 
And thus our conference closed. 

And then we strolled 
For half the day thro' stately theatres 
Benched crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard 
The grave Professor. On the lecture slate 
The circle rounded under female hands 35o 

With flawless demonstration ; followed then 
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment. 
With scraps of thundrous epic lilted out 

341. Cyril's adroit attack upon Lady Psyche's affection is 
continued. Through the child he will yet win the mother's 
love, 260; V, 102; VII, 68, etc. 

345. Explain the use of Hat. 

347. A memory of Cambridge? 

349. The grave Professor. — Is this language conventional, 
satirical, or sincere? Lecture slate. — That is, blackboards. 
Is this technical or poetic? 

349~363. This description of the educational processes is 
perhaps a commentary on the curriculum of girls' schools. 
Geometry : 350. Classic Poems, Epics, Elegies and Odes : 
ff. 352. Government, history, psychology, ethics, physiology, 
geology, astronomy, ornithology, ichthyology, concliology, 
botany, electricity, chemistry — and all the rest: 358-362. This 
is a formidable array ! 

353. Note the contrast between ^thundrous' and 'lilted out' 
{i. c, 'declaimed in a feminine voice, '-^//aZ/aw Tenny'^ 



CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. 85 

By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 

And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long 355 

That on the stretched forefinger of all Time 

Sparkle for ever ; then we dipped in all 

That treats of whatsoever is : the State ; 

The total chronicles of man, the mind, 

The morals, something of the frame ; the rock, 360 

The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower, 

Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest ; 

And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 

Till, like three horses that have broken fence 

And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, 365 

We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke: 

'Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we.' 

'They hunt old trails,' said Cyril, 'very well ; 

But when did woman ever yet invent ?' 

'Ungracious!' answered Florian ; 'have you learnt 370 

No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talked 

The trash that made me sick, and almost sad ?' 

354, The lecturers on poetry seem to wear Psyche's colors, 
3, etc. Were Blanche's disciples given to mathematics, etc.? 

355- Jewels five- words-long. — These are heroic lines, i. e., 
iambic lines of five bars. 

360. Cf. Ill, 289. Their knowledge here was limited. 

366. Knowledge. — Knowledge is power is Ida's dogma, so 
acquisition, not assimilation, is the ideal. Multiply facts. 

367. Woman's reproductive faculty is here put in contrast 
with her inventive. 

369. Do you admit the proposition implied in this rhetori- 
cal question? 

372. Cf. 192; also 238, 329. 



86 THE PRINCESS : [canto ii 

'O trash/ he said^ 'but with a kernel in it. 

Should I not call her wise, who made mg wise? 

And learnt ? I learnt more from her in a flash, 375 

Than if my brainpan were an empty hull, 

And every Muse tumbled a science in. 

A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 

And round these halls a thousand baby loves 

Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts, 380 

Whence follows many a vacant pang; but O 

With me, Sir, entered in the bigger boy, 

The Head of all the golden-shafted firm, 

The long-limbed lad that had a Psyche too; 

He cleft me thro' the stomacher. And now 385 

What think you of it, Florian ? do I chase 

The substance or the shadow? will it hold? 

375' Cf. Shakespeare's Love's Lahor*s Lost, IV, iii, 290 flf. 
Z77. As illustrated by the methods of this University see 

349-363. 

378. Cf. 448. Which IS intended to represent the atten- 
dance ? 

379, This seems to denote the faintest intimation of im- 
awakened love. 

382. Bigger boy. — Cupid himself, the chief of all the 
retinue having golden arrows. The prosaic vi^ord 'firm' is in 
Cyril's character. 

384. The story 6f Cupid and Psyche may be found in 
Moore's The Earthly Paradise, Harvey's Cupid and Psyche, 
Keats' Ode to Psyche, etc. The story is lirst found in the 
writings of Apuleius. 

385. Stomacher. — Is this an article of man's clothing? 
Cyril rather prefers the slangy tone. 

387. Cf. I, 9. 



CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. g^ 

I have no sorcerer's malison on me, 

No ghostly hauntings like His Highness. I 

Flatter myself that always everywhere 290 

I know the substance when I see it. Well, 

Are castles shadows? Three of them? Is she, 

The sweet proprietress, a shadow ? If not, 

Shall those three castles patch my tattered coat ? 

For dear are those three castles to my wants, 30,5 

And dear is sister Psyche to my heart, 

And two dear things are one of double worth ; 

And much I might have said, but that my zone 

Unmanned me ; then the Doctors ! O to hear 

The Doctors ! O to watch the thirsty plants 400 

Imbibing! once or twice I thought to roar, 

To break my chain, to shake my mane ; but thou 

Modulate me, soul of mincing mimicry ! 

Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat ; 

388. Malison. — Compare the similarly formed antonym 
benison. Malison is not an unusual word in old ballads. 

389. Cf. again L 9 ff. 

39i~397- Cyril's account of his love for Florian's sister is 
not creditable to his heart, since it is confessedly mercenary, 
bent on substantial gain; or creditable to his taste, since his 
avowal of his cupidity is to Florian himself. 

394. Cf. I, 78. Cf. also I, 52 for Cyril's broken fortune. 

398. Zone.— Cf. 4. 

401. Cyril did not preserve this 'modulation.' Cf. IV, 137. 

403. Cf. As You Like It, I, iii, 117. Shakespeare often 
clothes women with men's garb and manners. Note Tenny- 
son's attempt to do the reverse. 

404. Bassoon. — This is a reed instrument of guttural 
timbre, cf. IV, 74. 



88 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 405 

Star-sisters answering under crescent brows; 

Abate the stride which speaks of man, and loose 

A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, 

Where they like swallows coming out of time 

Will wonder why they came; but hark the bell 410 

For dinner, let us go !' 

And in we streamed 
Among the columns, pacing staid and still 
By twos and threes, till all from end to end 
With beauties every shade of brown and fair, 
In colors gayer than the morning mist, 415 

The long hall glittered like a bed of flowers. 
How might a man not wander from his wits 
Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own 
Intent on her who, rapt in glorious dreams. 
The second-sight of some Astrsean age, 420 

Sat compassed with Professors; they, the while. 
Discussed a doubt and tossed it to and fro ; 
A clamor thickened, mixed with inmost terms 

406. Cf. Ida's 'arched brows.' 25. 

409. They refers to 'blushes.' The simile, 'like . . . 
time,' should be set off with commas. 

410. Cyril seems to be mundane as well as mercenary, 
415. Colors. — Principally violet and golden, 3, 4; and 

yellow, 303. 

419. Her.— Ida, 18 ff. 

420. AsTR^AN. — Astrsea, goddess of innocence and purity, 
who abandoned the world in the Age of Iron. Her return 
with a Golden Age was predicted. Virgil, Eclogue, IV, 6. 
Milton's Hymn on the Nativity. Pope's Messiah, etc. 



CANTO II] A MEDLEY. 89 

Of art and science ; Lady Blanche alone, 

Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, 425 

With all her autumn tresses falsely brown. 

Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 

In act to spring. 

At last a solemn grace 
Concluded, and we sought the gardens ; there 
One walked reciting by herself, and one 430 

In this hand held a volume as to read, 
And smoothed a petted peacock down with that. 
Some to a low song oared a shallop by. 
Or under arches of the marble bridge 
Hung, shadowed from the heat ; some hid and sought 435 
In the orange thickets; others tossed a ball 
Above the fountain-jets, and back again 
With laughter ; others lay about the lawns — 
Of the older sort — and murmured that their May 

425-428. Contrast Lady Blanche in form, features, dress, 
age, manners, and spirit with Lady Psyche, 91 ff. 

428. Is the grace after, rather than before, meals an Eng- 
lish custom? 

431. As.— As if. Pretense of study. 338. 

432. Peacock. — Is this the only male thing within the 
liberties? Is he tolerated because of his feminine vanity of 
splendid colors? 

433. Oared.— IV, 165. Would 'rowed' suggest too much 
effort? 

434. Another reminder of the Cam and the poet's univer- 
sity days. 

436. Orange. — Another hint as to the southern locality of 
this Academe, 

439. Nature will assert itself. 35; 287; 313; I, 2. 
439 ff. The spirit of discontent has already entered. 



90 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii 

Was passing; what was learning unto them? 440 

They wished to marry ; they could rule a house ; 

Men hated learned women ; — but we three 

Sat muffled like the Fates; and often came 

Melissa, hitting all we saw with shafts 

Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 445 

That harmed not. Then day drooped ; the chapel bells 

Called us ; we left the walks ; we mixed with those 

Six hundred maidens clad in purest while, 

Before two streams of light from wall to wall, 

While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 450 

Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 

A long melodious thunder to the sound 

Of solemn psalms and silver litanies, 

The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven 

A blessing on her labors for the world. 455 

443. Muffled.— 337 ff. Atropos was the only 'muffled' 
Fate. The others were Clotho and Lachesis. 

448. Purest white. — In white surplices. 'They were in 
white at chapel, as we Cantabs were at our Trinity College 
Chapel in Cambridge.' — Tennyson to Rolfe, 

450. For the music of the lines, cf. In Memoriam, 
LXXXVII, 2. 

454. Did the 'new light' (z^j) demand a new ritual and 
new hymns or were those generally used repudiated because 
they were man-made? Woman's religious instinct prevails, 
no matter what her vagaries. 



[THE LULLABY.] 

Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea, 
Low, low, breathe and blow, 

Wind of the western sea ! 
Over the rolling waters go. 
Come from the dying moon, and blow, 

Blow him again to me ; 
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 

Father will come to thee soon; 
Rest, rest, on mother's breast. 

Father will come to thee soon; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon: 
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 



This second intercalary poem— The Lullaby— suggests 
perhaps the sense of fancied security and safety from all 
intrusion into which this Academe is lulled. It points more 
directly to the present. The child is not only the reconciling 
medium of differences between father and mother, man and 
woman, it is also the unifying power of the family. The 
happiness of the mother, the hope of the father is in the 
child. The child image is still kept before us ; for it is the 
child that will soften Ida's heart and solve her problems. 
This poem was probably suggested by Theocritus XXIV, 7-9, 
and its present form was chosen by Mrs. Tennyson, who, 
because of its song-like quality, preferred it to the poem given 
in The Memoir of Tennyson, I, 255. 



[ 91 ] 



92 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 



III. 



[THE RIDE TO THE NORTH.] 

[After much difficulty in dressing themselves in woman's 
garb, they are standing near the fountain when Melissa tells 
them that Blanche has learned the truth that they are men. 
Melissa bids them flee. Florian shows signs of falling in 
love with Melissa, while the Prince defends Ida. Cyril re- 
counts how, by the appeal to her ambition, he has temporarily 
pacified Blanche. A message comes that the Prince will ride 
to the north on a scientific expedition. On the way the Prince 
(unrecognized) speaks of his love, and the Princess tells of 
her plans and purposes. — Ed.] 

IVIoRN in the white wake of the morning star 

Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 

We rose, and each by other dressed with care, 

Descended to the court, that lay three parts 

In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touched, i 

Above the darkness, from their native East. 

There, while we stood beside the fount, and watched 
Or seemed to watch the dancing bubble, approached 

1-2. These beautiful lines need no explanation; they 
simply need realization. Venus precedes the Sun, who fills 
the East with rolling ridges of gold. Some day find the lines 
reproduced in the heavens. 

5. Muses.— II, 13. 



CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 93 

Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep, 

Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes 10 

The circled Iris of a night of tears; 

And 'Fly,' she cried, 'O fly, while yet you may ! 

My mother knows ;' and when I asked her 'How ?' 

'My fault,' she wept, 'my fault 1 and yet not mine ; 

Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me. 15 

My mother, 't is her wont from night to night 

To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 

She says the Princess should have been the Head, 

Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms ; 

And so it was agreed when first they came ; 20 

But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, 

And she the left, or not or seldom used ; 

Hers more than half the students, all the love. 

And so last night she fell to canvass you : 

Her countrywomen ! she did not envy her. 25 

"Who ever saw such wild barbarians? 

Girls?— more like men !" and at these words the snake, 

9. Tinged with wan.— Pale. The derivation of 'wan' is 
very peculiar (see Skeat's Etymological Dictionary), but 
Tennyson is using it with exactness. Cf. Milton's Paradise 
Lost, X, 1009, 'dyed with pale.' 

II. Iris— The rainbow. This word, suggested in connec- 
tion with eyes by the technical name for a part of the eye, 
conveys the idea of variegated color rather than that of dark- 
ness induced by weeping. The word is not suggestive. 

21-23. Note Lady Blanche's jealousy. This, rather than 
her convictions as to the usefulness of the Academe, will 
explain her action. Cf. L 230. 

26. Barbarians.— II, 278; IV, 516. 

27. She had watched them to good purpose. II, Z?>> 427- 



94 THE PRINCESS: [canto iir 

My secret, seemed to stir within my breast ; 

And oh, Sirs, could I help it? but my cheek 

Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 30 

To fix and make me hotter, till she laughed : 

"O marvelously modest maiden, you ! 

Men ! girls like men ! why, if they had been men 

You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus 

For wholesale comment" Pardon, I am shamed 35 

That I must needs repeat for my excuse 

What looks so little graceful; "Men" (for still 

My mother went revolving on the word), 

"And so they are, — very like men indeed, 

And with that woman closeted for hours !" 40 

Then came these dreadful words out one by one, 

"Why — these — are — men ;" I shuddered ; "and you 

know it." 
"O ask me nothing," I said ; "And she knows too, 
And she conceals it." So my mother clutched 
The truth at once, but with no word from me ; 45 

30. II, 427. The sharpness and shrewdness of the preying 
animal is in her jealousy. 

32-42. The steps by which Blanche reaches certainty in 
her suspicion might be compared with those by which 
Othello reaches assurance, or Leontes in The Winter's Tale 
is confirmed in his jealousy. 

34, In rubric. — In red (blushes), as in old books, initials 
and significant words were sometimes printed. 

42. This discovery is the dynamic point of this Canto, as 
Lady Psyche's was of the second and Ida's of the fourth. I 
SHUDDERED is parenthetic and miglit be so written. 

44. Clutched. — This seems to indicate a bird of prey. 



CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 95 

And now thus early risen she goes to inform 
The Princess ; Lady Psyche will be crushed ; 
But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly ; 
But heal me with your pardon ere you go.' 

'What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush?' 50 

Said Cyril : 'Pale one, blush again ; than wear 
Those lilies, better blush our lives away. 
Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven,' 
He added, 'lest some classic angel speak 
In scorn of us, "They mounted, Ganymedes, 55 

To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn." 
But I wall melt this marble into wax 
To yield us farther furlough ;' and he went. 

Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought 
He scarce would prosper. 'Tell us,' Florian asked, 60 
'How grew this feud betwixt the right and left.' 
'O long ago,' she said, 'betwixt these two 
Division smolders hidden ; 'tis my mother 
Too jealous, often fretful as the w^ind 
Pent in a crevice ; much I bear with her; 65 

I never knew my father, but she says 

49. Heal. — Make whole, restore, 

55. Ganymede was carried up by an eagle; Vulcan was 
cast from Olympus. Cf. for Ganymede, Palace of Art; Mil- 
ton's Paradise Regained, II, 353, etc. For Vulcan, cf. Mil- 
ton's Paradise Lost, I, 740-6. 

57. Cyril's boast to overcome Blanche's hardness is made 
good, 140-151. 

61. Cf. 19, 141. 



gS THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 

(God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; 

And still she railed against the state of things. 

She had the care of Lady Ida's youth, 

And from the Queen's decease she brought her up. ^q 

But when your sister came she won the heart 

Of Ida ; they were still together, grew 

(For so they said themselves) inosculated ; 

Consonant chords that shiver to one note; 

One mind in all things ; yet my mother still 75 

Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories^ 

And angled with them for her pupils' love; 

She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what; 

But I must go; I dare not tarry,' and light 

As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 80 

Then murmured Florian, gazing after her, 
*An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. 
If I could love, why this were she ; how pretty 

68. Still.— Continually. Cf. 72; I, 56. 

69. Cf. VI, 217 ff. 

72. Does Melissa, a young girl, thus speak of the haughty 
head of this great institution? 

7^. Inosculated. — To run together by kisses; united by 
affection. 

74. Consonant chords.— Two lives so alike that they 
respond identically to the same impression, just as two con- 
sonant chords will vibrate to a given note. 

78. Plagiarist. — A kidnapper, particularly of literary 
wares. 

82. Florian falls in love with less precipitancy, and i.s 
abashed by his feeling. Cf. Cyril, 51-53, 



CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 97 

Her blushing was, and how she blushed again, 
As if to close with Cyril's random wish ; 85 

Not like your Princess crammed with erring pride, 
Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.' 

The crane,' I said, 'may chatter of the crane, 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I, 
An eagle, clang an eagle to the sphere. 90 

My princess, O my princess !— True, she errs, 
But in her own grand way ; being herself 
Three times more noble than three score of men, 
She sees herself in every woman else; 
And so she wears her error like a crown 95 

To blind the truth and me; for her, and her, 

86-87. Florian's view of Ida as full of erring pride and 
of Psyche as merely a dependent of Ida's is not compli- 
mentary to either. 

88-89. Are these lines to be construed as of personal 
reference? Psyche and Cyril do not lack words; Florian 
and Melissa are somewhat 'turtle-doveish ;' but the Prince 
and the Princess are eagles bent on high flight. 

90. Clang.— Celebrate with clangor (Century Diction- 
ary) Did Tennyson create this meaning for the word by 
his use of it in this poem? Cf. IV, 415; cf. also Paradise 
Lost, XI, 835, 'sea-mew's clang.' Sphere.— The overarchmg 

heavens. , . 

94. The Prince thinks her chief error is in her misjudg- 
ment of other women when she thinks them equal to her- 
self. 

96. For her, and her.— Lady Psyche and Melissa, the 
loves of Cyril and Florian; or Lady Psyche and Lady 
Blanche, the right and left of Ida? Probably the latter. 



98 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 

Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix 

The nectar ; but — ah she ! — whene'er she moves 

The Samian Here rises, and she speaks 

A Memnon smitten with the morning sun.' loo 

So saying, from the court we paced, and gained 
The terrace ranged along the Northern front, 
And leaning there on those balusters, high 
Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale 
That, blown about the foliage underneath, j^^ 

And sated with the innumerable rose, 
Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came 
Cyril, and yawning, 'O hard task,' he cried, 
'No fighting shadows here ! I forced a way 
Thro' solid opposition, crabbed and gnarled. no 

Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump 

97. Hebe. — The cupbearer of the gods. 

99. Samian Here. — Hera (Juno) of Samos. 

100. Memnon. — Killed by Achilles. His statue near 
Thebes was said to emit a musical note when struck by the 
rising sun. 

103. Is this pronunciation of 'balusters' correct? 

104. Empurpled. — 'Blue in the distance' (Wallace) ; VI, 
179. In Menioriam, XXXVIII, 3. See also VII, 187. Cham- 
paign. Cf. campaign. Campagna; flat, open country. 

106. Cf. V, 13, etc. 

109. That is, in trying to overcome Lady Blanche. Cf. 
57, 151- 

III. PRiME.—Primeval. A Miltonic use. 

111-112. This euphemistic periphrasis for street paving 
is in keeping with Tennyson's over-elaborate poetizing of the 
unpoeticak 



CANTO III] A MEDLEY. go 

A league of street in summer solstice down, 

Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. 

I knocked and, bidden, entered ; found her there 

At point to move, and settled in her eyes 115 

The green malignant light of coming storm. 

Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oiled 

As man's could be ; yet maiden-meek I prayed 

Concealment ; she demanded who we were, 

And why we came ? I fabled nothing fair, 120 

But, your example pilot, told her all. 

Up went the hushed amaze of hand and eye. 

But when I dwelt upon your old affiance. 

She answered sharply that I talked astray. 

I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, 125 

And our three lives. True — we had limed ourselves 

With open eyes, and we must take the chance. 

But such extremes, I told her, well might harm 

115. At point to move. — The more usual form is 'on the 
point,' or 'at the point.' Cf. Lat. In eo est, and Ger. Auf 
dem Punkt. 

116. Green malignant light (of a tiger-cat). Cf. 11,427. 
121. Your example pilot.— Construe grammatically. Cf. 

II, 194 flf. 

121-149. Cyril tries frankness, love-story, danger, pity, 
policy, maternal love, terror, and ambition, and succeeds by 
this last. Cf. The arguments and appeals by which Psyche 
is won, II, 195 ff. 

126. Limed. — Entrapped ourselves. Cf. Shakespeare's 
Hamlet, III, iii, 68-69. Note use of bird-lime for taking 
birds. 

128. Extreme. — The execution of an extreme law renders 
nugatory the law itself. Cf. Of Old Sat Freedom. 

LofC. 



lOO THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 

The woman's cause. ''Not more than now," she said, 

"So puddled as it is with favoritism." 130 

I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall 

Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew ; 

Her answer was "Leave me to deal with that." 

I spoke of war to come, and many deaths, 

And she replied, her duty was to speak, 135 

And duty duty, clear of consequences. 

I grew discouraged, Sir; but since I knew 

No rock so hard but that a little wave 

May beat admission in a thousand years, 

I recommenced : "Decide not ere you pause. 140 

I find you here but in the second place. 

Some say the third — the authentic foundress you. 

I offer boldly — we will seat you highest ; 

Wink at our advent ; help my prince to gain 

His rightful bride, and here I promise you 145 

Some palace in our land, where you shall reign 

The head and heart of all our fair she-world, 

And your great name flow on with broadening time 

130. Puddled. — Is the idea, muddied, hence befouled? Cf. 
Shakespeare's Othello, III, IV, 148. 

133. Cf. IV, 347. 

136. Cf. Qinone, 147-8. 

142. Foundress. — This word rather than founder is de- 
liberately used by Cyril to emphasize sex. 

144. Advent. — This form of the word is usually reserved 
for a higher purpose. 

147. Head and heart. — The man and woman in one, 18; 
V, 439. She-world. — Compare 'she-society,' Prl. 158. 

148. Cf. II, 31-32. 



CANTO mi A MEDLEY. lOi 

For ever." Well, she balanced this a little, 
And told me she would answer us to-day, 
Meantime be mute ; thus much, nor more, I gamed. 

He ceasing, came a message from the Head. 
'That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
The dip of certain strata to the North. 
Would we go with her? we should find the land 
Worth seeing; and the river made a tall 
Out yonder;' then she pointed on to where 
A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
Beyond the thick-leaved platans of the vale. 



150 



155 



160 



Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro' all 
Its range of duties to the appointed hour. 
Then summoned to the porch we went. She stood 
Among her maidens, higher by the head. 
Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 
Of those tame leopards. Kittenlike he rolled 165 

And pawed about her sandal. I drew near ; 

1.4 To THE North depends on 'rode.' The collocation Is 
unhappy. This expedition for geological exploration bnngs 
lo Z fore the attention given to the sciences least suited 

to feminine prosecution. r-^,Ano^) 

158. Furrowy roRKS.-Forks with furrows (i. c, ravines) 

in the sides. 

m8-g. Cf. note on 111-112. 

159. Thick-leaved PLATANS.-Collins traces this to Mos- 

"" "'63. Higher BY THE HEAD.-99- Prk 40; 11,27. Cf. the 
account of Saul in I Samuel, ix, 2. 



102 



THE PRINCESS: [canto iir 



I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came 

Upon me, the weird vision of our house; 

The Princess Ida seemed a hollow show, 

Her gay-furred cats a painted fantasy, 170 

Her college and her maidens empty masks. 

And I myself the shadow of a dream ; 

For all things were and were not. Yet I felt 

My heart beat thick with passion and with awe; 

Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 175 

Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes 

That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook 

My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 

Went forth in long retinue, following up 

The river as it narrowed to the hills. 180 

167. Cf. I, 14; 81. 

168. The 'weird seizure,' first mentioned in Canto I (14) 
and there explained by the Court Galen (81) as 'catalepsy,' 
is perhaps akin to the singular state described in In Memo- 
riam, XCV, 9. This condition is here caused by intense 
gazing, but perhaps is nothing more than 'love passion,' as 
Cook suggests. (Cook's edition of The Princess.) Tenny- 
son's own account of the state into which he could bring 
himself at will is in point. See Rolfe's In Mcmoriam, p. 194. 

172. Cf. I, 18; V, 466. Such expressions, as well as 
'were and were not,' etc., point to the unrealities of the poem. 

174-178. These lines indicate that his 'weird seizure' was 
hardly more than a poetic and romantic transport of love. 

176. Brake. — Tennyson often prefers the archaic and 
poetic form rather than the form ordinarily sanctioned. 

179. Retinue. — Cf. Baluster. Tennyson's liberties with 
prosaic forms is hardly as daring as his liberties with ac- 
cepted accents. 



CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 103 

I rode beside her, and to me she said : 
'O friend, we trust that you esteemed us not 
Too harsh to your companion yestermorn ; 
Unwillingly we spake.' 'No — not to her,' 
I answered, 'but to one of whom we spake 185 

Your Highness might have seemed the thing you say.' 
'Again?' she cried, 'are you ambassadresses 
From him to me? We give you, being strange, 
A license ; speak, and let the topic die,' 

I stammered that I knew him — could have wished — 190 
'Our king expects — 'was there no precontract? 
There is no truer-hearted — ah, you seem 
All he prefigured, and he could not see 
The bird of passage flying south but longed 
To follow ; surely, if Your Highness keep 195 

Your purport, you will shock him even to death. 
Or baser courses, children of despair.' 

182. Cyril. — Cf. II, 39. There is no elective affinity be- 
tween the Princess and Cyril ; cf. IV, 144. 

186. The thing you say. — That is, too harsh. 

187. Again — Cf. II, 35. It was the Princess who first 
introduced the Prince as a subject of inquiry, as it is the 
Princess, whose curiosity gives a new pupil license to speak 
freely of him. 

194. Note the Song of the Swallow, IV, 75 ff. Cf. also I, 
35 ff, 96 ff. 

195. These words and others do not impress the Princess 
with the manliness and masculine strength of her longing 
lover. To compare him with a girl (202) is to insult the 
girls of her institution; therefore she compares him with 
girls as they used to be, childish and sentimental ; cf. VII, 227. 



104 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 

'Poor boy,' she said, 'can he not read — no books? 
Quoit, tennis, ball — no games ? nor deals in that 
Which men delight in, martial exercise? 200 

To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
Methinks he seems no better than a girl, 
As girls were once, — as we ourself have been ; 
We had our dreams ; perhaps he mixed with them ; 
We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it, 205 

Being other — since we learnt our meaning here : 
To lift the woman's fallen divinity 
Upon an even pedestal with man.' 

She paused, and added with a haughtier smile, 
*And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, 210 

At no man's beck, but know ourself — and thee, 

196. Purport. — Cf. II, 46-47. 

197. Basrr courses. — Worse than death. Cf. 'Better not 
be at all than not be noble,' — II, 79. 

205. Cf. In Memoriam, I, i. 

206. Our meaning. — The true dignity and mission of the 
sex. Cf. VII, 215 ff. 

207. Cf. Lilia's view, Prl. 127 ff; Psyche's, II, 32S; 
Princess', II, 51-52, 155 ff. The theme, I, 130. 

207-208. This is ari excellent statement of the purpose of 
the Princess in establishing her Academe. Compare the 
splendid solution of this problem in VII, 239-345. 

210. Cf. 191; I, 31, 122; V, 388, etc. 

211. Thee. — In apposition with this pronoun stands 
'Vashti,' the proud Oriental queen, who knew how to main- 
tain her own equality and independence. Cf. Esther, I. This 
apostrophe is the Princess' appeal for sympathy and support 
in her similar problem. 



CANTO III] A MEDLEY. I05 

Vashti, noble Vashti ! Summoned out 
She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.' 

'Alas, your Highness breathes full East,' I said, 215 
'On that which leans to you. I know the Prince, 

1 prize his truth : and then how vast a work 
To assail this gray preeminence of man ! 

You grant me license; might I use it? Think; 

Ere half be done perchance your life may fail ; 220 

Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, 

And takes and ruins all ; and thus your pains 

May only make that footprint upon sand 

Which old-recurring waves of prejudice 

Resmooth to nothing: might I dread that you, 225 

215. EuLL East. — This Eastern allusion is disheartening 
to an aspiring lover, and breathes defiance like a keen east 
wind. Cf. Audley Court, 51-53. 

217. Here begins the Prince's love-assault upon the 
Princess. Psyche had been won by a brother's appeal and 
by unacknowledged love for a bold, frank wooer: Blanche 
succumbed to the arguments of power and ambition ; but 
the Princess yields nothing, except a confession of her sacri- 
fice and her love for children. The Prince makes these 
points: (i) Owing to the shortness of life her work will be 
left unfinished; (2) the work will then be of no avail; (3) 
her life will be vain; (4) she will lose in this experiment, 
'love, children, happiness.' 

218. Gray pre-eminence. — Ancient superiority. Prl. 127. 
For her altered view, cf. VII, 282 ff. 

223. Cf. The Psalm of Life by Longfellow. Did Tenny- 
son, here or elsewhere, owe anything to this poet? 



I06 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 

With only fame for spouse and your great deeds ^ 
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss. 
Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due, 
Love, children, happiness?' 

And she exclaimed, 
'Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild ! 230 

What tho' your Prince's love were like a God's, 
Have we not made ourself the sacrifice? 
You are bold indeed ; we are not talked to thus ; 
Yet will we say for children, would they grew 
Like field-flovvers everywhere ! we like them well ; 3^5 
But children die ; and let me tell you, girl, 
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die ; 
They with the sun and moon renew their light 
For ever, blessing those that look on them. 
Children — that men may pluck them from our hearts, 240 

226. Fame is usually personified as of what sex? 

228-9. The Prince's conception of woman's due is more 
limited than that he finally utters. Cf. VII, 239 ff. 

232. The Princess then admits that her conduct in relin- 
quishing her 'due' (228-9) was 'fiat treason 'gainst the 
kingly state of youth.' — Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost, 
IV, iii, 293. 

234-240. The Princess can surrender love and happiness 
of 'woman's due,' but her mind clings to the thought — 
children. It is a child, Psyche's Agla'ia, that will open Ida's 
heart to all other natural impressions. (V, 427). 

236. Children die, but their power does not. Cf. 'The 
Reconciliation Song' after Canto I. 

237. Babble. — The Princess does not hesitate to decry the 
argument of this young 'savage.' 

237. Find illustrations of this truth. 



CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 107 

Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — 

O — children — there is nothing upon earth 

More miserable than she that has a son 

And sees him err ! Nor would we work for fame ; 

Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great, 245 

Who learns the one pou sto whence after-hands 

May move the world, tho' she herself .efifect 

But little ; wherefore up and act, nor shrink 

For fear our solid aim be dissipated 

By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been, 250 

In lieu of many mortal flies, a race 

Of giants living each a thousand years. 

That we might see our own work out, and watch 

The sandy footprint harden into stone." 

I answered nothing, doubtful in myself 255 

tf that strange Poet-princess, with her grand 
Imaginations, might at all be won. 
And she broke out, interpreting my thoughts : 

243. Cf. Proverbs X. i. 

245. To whom in English History has this epithet of 
'Great' been applied, and why? 

246. Pou Sto. — 'Give me where I may stand, and I will 
move the world.' This was what Archimedes said when 
speaking of the power of the lever, Cf. In Menwriam, 
CXIII. 

251. Flies. — This suggests the ephemeral character of 
life. Cf. In Memoriam, L; Milton's Samson Agonistes, 676. 

254. Cf. 223. 

257. This grand poetic imagination is not out of keeping 
with her potent will, heretofore noted. 



I08 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 

'No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you ; 
We are used to that ; for women, up till this 260 

Cramped under worse than South-sea-isle taboo, 
Dwarfs of the gyn^eceum, fail so far 
In high desire, they know not, cannot guess 
How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
If we could give them surer, quicker proof — 265 

O if our end were less achievable 
By slow approaches than by single act 
Of immolation, any phase of death, 
We were as prompt to spring against the pikes, 

259. Cf. 230. The Princess does not desire the silence 
she enjoined. 

259-271. This passage is conclusive as to the seriousness 
and sincerity of Ida's sacrifice. She is not a Lady Blanche 
swayed by ambition nor a Psyche caught by fancy and senti- 
ment. 

260. We are used to that. — Namely to be misjudged by 
other women, who question her sincerity. 

261. South-Sea-Isle taboo. — The taboo, denoted by a 
mark, was a prohibition or ban under which property of the 
South Sea Islanders was placed. It transferred owner- 
ship from the rightful owner to the priesthood. It suggests 
here that woman's independence had been surrendered to 
man. 

262. Gyn;eceum. — The rear of the house reserved for 
women. Here probably a school for girls corresponding 
to the Gymnasium — a school for boys (in fact, though not 
in etymology). 

269. Read the story of Publius Decius Mus, a hero of the 
Latin War (c. 340 B. C.) Cf. II, 264. 

269. Cf. II, 268. These women are fond of recalling the 
heroic deeds of men. 



CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 109 

Or down the fiery gulf, as talk of it, 270 

To compass our dear sisters' liberties.' 

She bowed as if to veil a noble tear ; 
And up we came to where the river sloped 
To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks 
A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, 275 

And danced the color, and, below, stuck out 
The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roared 
Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 
*As these rude bones to us, are we to her 
That will be.' 'Dare we dream of that,' I asked, 280 

'Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, 
That practice betters?' 'How,' she cried, 'you love 
The metaphysics ! Read and earn our prize, 
A golden brooch ; beneath an emerald plane 

270. Recall the legend of Marcus Curtius (c. B. C 3^2). 
Are diese three references the only ones to men? 

274. Listen to the explosive splash of falling water. 

276. The color. — The rainbow framed in the spray. Cf. 
Palace of Art, 35-6, 43- 

277. Cf. Prl. 15. 

279. Prophecy as to the improvements of the race, or 
specifically of woman. 

280. That . . . which.— The creative force, or better, 
the Creator; cf. II, 128. 

280. Tennyson raises the question here as to whether there 
can be a progressive God ; that is, a God who improves upon 
his own work by practice; and hence whether the human 
race may be different and far greater in the future. Cf. Pass- 
ing of Arthur. His answer to his question seems to be in 
'progressive interpretation.' 309 ff. 

284. This design is characteristically feminine. Cf. The 
College Seal, I, 238. 



no THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 

Sits Diotima, teaching him that died 285 

Of hemkxrk ; our device ; wrought to the Hfe ; 

She rapt upon her subject, he on her: 

For there are schools for all/ 'And yet,' I said, 

'Methinks I have not found among them all 

One anatomic' 'Nay, we thought of that,' 290 

She answered, 'but it pleased us not ; in truth 

We shudder but to dream our maids should ape 

Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, 

And cram him with the fragments of the grave, 

Or in the dark dissolving human heart, 295 

And holy secrets of this microcosm. 

Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, 

285. Diotima. — The instructress of Socrates. A case in 
point of Psyche's aim. Cf. II, 328. 

288. Schools. — Departments, courses. This terminology 
is still preserved at the University of Virginia and institu- 
tions-established under her influence. 

290. This omission, not noted before, seems rather inartis- 
tically mentioned to give the Princess an opportunity for a 
disquisition on vivisection. 

293. Carve the living hound. — This protest against vivi- 
section is not merely a woman's ; it is Tennyson's ; cf. In 
the Children's Hospital. 

294. Can this refer to inoculating in modern bacteriologi- 
cal laboratories, or does it merely refer to feeding the dog 
on the cadaver? 

295. Dissolving. — The choice of the word here relieves 
the loathsomeness of the thought. 

296. Microcosm. — The little world (man) as opposed to 
Macrocosm (the great world outside of him.) 

297. Tennyson seems to have had a laudable loathing of the 
'coarse red' surgeons who can 'break their jests on the dead.' 



CANTO III] A MEDLEY. Ill 

Encarnalize their spirits; yet we know 

Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs ; 

Howbeit onrself, foreseeing casualty, 300 

Nor willing men should come among us, learnt. 

For many weary moons before we came, 

This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself 

Would tend upon you. To your question now. 

Which touches on the workman and his work. 305 

'Let there be light, and there was light ;' 't is so; 

For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; 

And all creation is one act at once. 

The birth of light ; but we that are not all. 

As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 310 

And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make 

One act a phantom of succession ; thus 

298. Encarnalize. — Convert spirits into flesh, the 
heavenly and divine into the earthly. Is this a Tennysonian 
contribution to our language? 

299. Hangs. — It is in abeyance. These women, though 
certain of many things, leave some problems to be solved 
later. 

303. Cf. VI, 279; VII, 76 ff. 

305. Cf. 281. 

306. Cf. Genesis i, 3; cf. Milton's Paradise Lost, VII, 
242 ff. 

306-314. This should be studied in connection with 280 ff. 
This universal present of the Creator, which in our part 
knowledge becomes a phantom of succession in past, present, 
and future, gives to creation the appearance of progression, 
while, in truth, the progression is only in our interpretation. 
Cf. In Memoriam, CXXXVIII. 

310. Cf. I Cor, xiii ; 12. 



1^2 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 

Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time; 
But in the shadow will we work, and mold 
The woman to the fuller day.' 

She spake 315 

With kindled eyes ; we rode a league beyond, 
And, o'er a bridge of pinewood crossing, came 
On flowery levels underneath the crag. 
Full of all beauty. 'O how sweet,' I said, 
(For I was half-oblivious of my mask), 320 

'To linger here with one that loved us.' 'Yea,' 
She answered, 'or with fair philosophies 
That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields 
Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns. 
Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw 325 

Tlie soft white vapor streak the crowned towers 
Built to the sun ;' then, turning to her maids, 
'Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward ; 
Lay out the viands.' At the word, they raised 
A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 330 

With fair Corinna's triumph ; here she stood, 

320. Half-oblivious, etc. — Near to falling out of the char- 
acter he was playing. 

322-3. As her fancy had just been elevated into the high- 
est realm by metaphysics. 

324. Elysian lawns.— Islands of the Blest; cf. Lang's 
Fortunate Islands. 

325. Demigods. — Titans. 
329. Cf. Prl. 105. 

331. Corinna's Triumph. — The embroidery represents 
the victory of Corinna, the woman conqueror, over Pindar, 
himself the 'victor of ten thousand hymns.' (See Gilder- 
sleeve's Pindar, p. X.) 



CANTO III] MEDLEY. II3 

Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek, 

The woman-conqueror ; woman-conquered there 

The bearded victor of ten-thousand hymns, 

And all the men mourned at his side ; but we 335 

Set forth to climb ; then, climbing, Cyril kept 

With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I 

With mine affianced. Many a little hand 

Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, 

Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 340 

In the dark crag ; and then we turned, we wound 

About the cliffs, the copses, out and in, 

Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 

Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff. 

Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the sun 345 

Grew broader toward his death, and fell, and all 

The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 

340. Tennyson can hardly be thinking of our athletic 
English cousins. The spirit of poetry is strong upon him. 

343. Stony, — Double sense. Hard, names of rocks. 

344-5. This catalogue of names calls for your dictionary, 
but for no technical explanation. 

346. See how fact and mythology are here blended. The 
Canto covers a full day. Can the time of each Canto be as- 
certained? 



[THE ECHO-SONG.] 

The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story; 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying; 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear. 
And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying ; 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river; 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 

And grow for ever and for ever. ^ 

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying; 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 

As the first intercalary poems have referred to the unify- 
ing power of the child in the past and present, so this poem 
points forward through child and grandchild to remote de- 
scendants. The echoes of the bugle faint as they reach 
greater distance, but our echoes grow with increasing genera- 
tions. Not in the achievements of one generation, as the 
Princess in her plan logically presumes, but in successive 
generations of growth is the problem of woman's increased 
power solved. 'Other men labor, and we enter into their 
labors,' that from the point to which they have brought the 
world we may move forward. Of the form of the poem — a 
perfect masterpiece of the poet's art — too much could not be 
said, and little need be said at all, for it commends itself to 
the ear rightly attuned. 

[ 114 ] 



CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. II5 



IV. 



[THE CAMP AND THE CASTAWAYS.] 

[In the camp, after the day's work, a song is called for. 
First Violet sings of the storied past, and the Prince 'apes 
their treble' in a mere love song. The Princess demands a 
song of their country, and Cyri! responds with a tavern catch 
unmeet for ladies. There is a shriek and a disorderly flight, 
in which the Princess loses her head and falls into a stream. 
The Prince rescues her. The ladies — except Psyche, who 
flees, followed by Cyril— reach the College, and Florian and 
the Prince are arrested and brought before the Princess. 
Blanche, the affluent orator, is too ardent in her prosecution, 
and is summarily dismissed, but Psyche's child is kept. Let- 
ters come telling of the siege of her palace by the Prince's 
father, who holds Gama as hostage. She addresses the 
brawlers, returns bitter thanks to her rescuer, and orders the 
men thrust out. — Ed.] 

There sinks the nebulous star we call the sun, 
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound,' 
Said Ida ; 'let us down and rest ;' and we 
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices. 
By every coppice-feathered chasm and cleft, 

2. Nebular hypothesis. H, 101-3. 

4. Wrinkled.— Cf. HT, 158; 'furrowy?' Cf. Will, 19. 

5. CoppiCE-FEATiiERED. — Same as 'copse feathered' 'Lightly 
fringed with foliage.' Wallace. Cf. The Gardener's Daugh- 
ter, 46. 



Il6 THE PRINCESS: [cantoiv 

Dropt through the ambrosial gloom to where below 
No bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent, 
Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she leaned on me, 
Descending; once or twice she lent her hand, 
And blissful pali)itations in the blood, lo 

Stirring a sudden transport, rose and fell. 

But when we planted level feet, and dipped 
Beneath tlie satin dome and entered in. 
There leaning deep in broidered down we sank 
Our elbows; on a tripod in the midst 15 

A fragrant flame rose, and before us glowed 
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold. 

Then she, 'Let some one sing to us ; lightlier move 
The minutes fledged with music;' and a maid. 
Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang: 20 

6. Dropt.— Cf. Prl. 96; I, 168. Ambrosial.— Cf. In Mc- 
moriam, LXXXVI, 'ambrosial air'; Longfellow's Evange- 
line, 'ambrosial meadows.' ('Ambrosial orbs' — apples — 
Isabel). 

10. Cf. Ill, 173 ff, ZZ^ ff- Cf. also Burns' first love poem, 
To Nell. 

13. Cf. Ill, 330. 

17. Cf. Prl. 106. The punctuation compels the interpre- 
tation of gold as gold- set, that is, with golden dishes. If the 
comma after wine were omitted, the gold would naturally 
refer to the color of the wine. The earlier reading was: 

'Fruit, viand, blossom, and amber wine and gold.' 

19. Fledged. — Winged, but fledged does not primarily 
suggest winged. A maid. — Violet ; cf. VI, 298. 



CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. II7 

' Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 25 

' Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail 
That brings our friends up from the underworld; 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 30 

- ' Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 35 

* Dear as remembered kisses after death. 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.' 40 

21. Tears, Idle Tears.— Plot Song I— Tassion of the 
Past.' 'The passion of the past, the abiding in the transient, 
was expressed in Tears, Idle Tears,' which was written in 
the yellowing autumntide at Tintern Abbey, full for me of its 
bygone memories.'— Tennyson. See Memoir, I, p. 253. Cf. 
Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey; cf. Charles Tennyson's Time 
and Twilight for the same 'damonisch feeling.' 'Few know 
that it is a blank verse lyric,' is Tennyson's comment on its 
form ; but all who have read it know its subtle and seductive 
charm. 'The days that are no more' recurs not alone as a 
poetic repetend, but as an echo from that past of unfulfilled 
love. 



Il8 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv 

She ended with such passion that the tear 
She sang of shook and fell, an erring pearl 
Lost in her bosom ; but with some disdain 
Answered the Princess, 'If indeed there haunt 
About the moldered lodges of the Past 45 

So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, 
Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool 
And so pace by ; but thine are fancies hatched 
In silken- folded idleness; nor is it 

Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, 50 

But trim our sails, and let old bygones be, 
While down the streams that float us each and all 
To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice. 
Throne after throne, and molten on the waste 
Becomes a cloud ; for all things serve their time 55 

Toward that great year of equal mights and rights ; 
Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end 
Found golden ; let the past be past ; let be 
Their canceled Babels ; tho' the rough kex break 

45. Lodges. — Habitations. 

47. Cf. The story ol Ulysses, Odyssey, Book XII. 

48. Pace — Cf. II, 412; III, 325, etc. It seems to have the 
wrong connotation here. 

48-62. The Princess has broken with the hoary past and 
turns toward the future with its promises of better things. 

56. Great year.— Cf. Tennyson's Morte d' Arthur ; Locks- 
ley Hall; In Memoriam. 'Epithalamium,' last quatrain. 
Cf. I, 130; VII, 283, etc. 

58. Found golden. — Cf. VII. 

59. Cf. Genesis xi. 1-9. Milton's Paradise Lost, XII. 
Kex, hemlock. 



CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. 1 19 

The starred mosaic, and the beard-blown goat ^^ 

Hang on the shaft, and the wild fig-tree split 

Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear 

A trumpet In the distance pealing news 

Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns 

Above the unrisen morrow ;' then to me, ^5 

'Know you no song of your own land,' she said, 

'Not such as moans about the retrospect. 

But deals with the other distance, and the hues 

Of promise ; not a death's-head at the wine ?' 

Then I remembered one myself had made, 70 

What time I watched the swallow winging south 
From mine own land, part made long since, and part 
Now while I sang; and maidenlike as far 
As I could ape their treble, did I sing : 

60. The beard blown goat.— Tennyson's explanation of 
this line is 'And surely the "beard-blown" goat involves a 
sense of the wind blowing the beard on the height of the 
ruined pillar.' If this is clear to the reader, it is well ! 

61-62. Wild fig tree.— Caprificus was noted for its power 
of rending rock. 

64. Burns.— Glistens, glows, shines. For a similar 
thought, cf. Gray, The Bard, XX ; Lowell, Above and Belozv, 
etc. 

68. A song of promise pointing to the future is here sug- 
gested. 

71. What time. — Paradise Lost, I, z^, etc. ; cf. Ill, 
194, and In Memoriam, XLVIII for 'swallow-flights of 
song.' 



120 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv 

* O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, ^5 

Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. 

' O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, 
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
And dark and true and tender is the North. 80 

' O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light 
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, 
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 

' O were I thou that she might take me In, 
And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 85 

Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 

'Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, 
Delaying as the tender ash delays 
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green? 

' O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown; 90 

Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, 
But in the North long since my nest is made. 

' O tell her, brief is life, but love is long, 
And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 95 

75. The Swallow Song. Plot Song II. A Love Song of 
Hope (Future). There is a peculiar fascination about this 
poem of rliymeless, isometric phrases. Stedman (p. 220, 
Victorian Poets) finds its model in the Third and Eleventh 
Idyls of Theocritus. This poem shows the poet's power of 
observation. 

79. Cf. Lanier, Psalm of the West. 

93. Variation of 'life is short, but art is long.* 



CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. 



121 



* O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, 
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, 
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.' 

I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, 
Like the Ithacensiaii suitors in old time, loo 

Stared with great eyes, and laughed with ahen lips, 
And knew not what they meant; for still my voice 
Rang false; but smiling, 'Not for thee,' she said, 
*0 Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan 

Shall burst her veil ; marsh-divers, rather, maid, 105 

Shall croak thee sister or the meadow-crake 
Grate her harsh kindred in the grass ; and this 
A mere love-poem ! O for such, my friend. 
We hold them slight ; they mind us of the time 
When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, no 

100. Ithacensian suitors. — Penelope, the true wife of 
Ulysses, was wooed during his absence by a hundred suitors. 
When Ulysses returns disguised they laugh, but their laugh- 
ter is as with 'other men's jaws,' Odyssey, XX, 347, that is, 
constrained, unnatural, 'with alien lips.' 

104. Bulbul. — Nightingale. The Princess can be sarcas- 
tic. Gulistan is the rose-garden. 

105. Shall burst her veil.— Does this refer to any story 
of a rose unfolding to the nightingale's passionate singing? 

106-7. ^EADOW-CRAKE.— Says Wood, 'The cry of the 
corn-crake may be exactly imitated by drawing a quill or a 
piece of stick over the large teeth of a comb, or by rubbing 
together two jagged strips of bone.' (Quoted from Cook, 
who quotes Dawson.) This also explains 'grate.' Cf. 
'clang,' III, 90. 

no. The period of bondage. Exodus, i, 8-14; Genesis, v, 
7-9- 



122 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv 

That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, 

And dress the victim to the offering up. 

And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, 

And play the slave to gain the tyranny. 

Poor soul ! I had a maid of honor once ; 115 

She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 

A rogue of canzonets and serenades. 

I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. 

So they blaspheme the muse ! But great is song 

Used to great ends ; ourself have often tried 120 

Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dashed 

The passion of the prophetess ; for song 

Is duer unto freedom, force, and growth 

Of spirit, than to junketing and love. 

Love is it? Would this same mock-love, and this 125 

Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats. 

Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, 

Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes 

117. Cf. Love's Labor's Lost, IV, ii, 124. 

121. Valkyrian. — Warlike. The Valkyries, warhke vir- 
gins, were sent to select and convey those destined for Wal- 
halhi. Cf. VI, 17-42. 

122. Miriam's Song. Exodus xv, 20. 

124. Junket. — To feast on sweetmeats, etc. ^ 

126. Mock-Hymen. — Hymen was a beautiful youth who 

presided over wedding feasts. Mock-Hymen is, then, 

mock-marriage; that is, union without true congeniaHty, 

etc. 

128-130. Refers to misconceptions of women as vassals, 

children incomplete in themselves and belonging to man. 



CANTO rv] A MEDLEY. 123 

To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered 
Whole in ourselves, and owed to none. Enough ! 130 
But now, to leaven play with profit, you. 
Know you no song, the true growth of your soil, 
That gives the manners of your countrywomen?' 

She spoke and turned her sumptuous head, with 
eyes 
Of shining expectation fixed on mine. 135 

Then while I dragged my brains for such a song, 
Cyril, with whom the bell-mouthed glass had wrought, 
Or mastered by the sense of sport, began 
To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch 
Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 140 

Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 
I frowning ; Psyche flushed and wanned and shook ; 

129. Cf. I, 47; II, 185; V, 340; VI, 102; VII, 287; In Me- 
moriam, CXXXI. Sphered whole.— Complete. Owed.— Be- 
longing, responsible, to none. 

132. She had asked the Prince for a National Song of 
Progress, and had got a love song. Now she asks for a 
Folk- Song, a Ballad of the Soil, and gets from Cyril an 
earthly tavern-catch. 

137. Bell-mouthed glass.— Wine glass ; Cf. 17. 

138. Cf. 231. 

139. This tavern-catch, which is unmeet for ladies, and 
therefore unmeet to print, represents the Third Plot Song. 
It does not refer to the passion of the past or the hope of 
the future, but is inspired by a pr??sent sense of frolic or by 
an irresistible rebellion against this unnatural and uncon- 
genial ideality. This is a brusque touch of rough realism. 

140. Cf. Shakespeare's Tempest, II, ii, 48-56, for these 
names that do not breathe respect for womanhood. 



124 '^^E PRINCESS: [canto iv 

The lilylike Melissa drooped her brows ; 

'Forbear,' the Princess cried; 'Forbear, Sir,' I; 

And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, 14s 

I smote him on the breast ; he started up ; 

There rose a shriek as of a city sacked ; 

Melissa clamored, Tlee the death ;' 'To horse,' 

Said Ida ; 'home ! to horse !' and fled, as flies 

A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk, 150 

When some one batters at the dovecote-doors. 

Disorderly the women. Alone 1 stood 

With Florian, cursing Cyril, vexed at heart, 

In the pavilion; there like parting hopes 

I heard them passing from me; hoof by hoof, 155 

And every hoof a knell to my desires, 

Clanged on the bridge ; and then another shriek, 

'The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head !' 

For blind with rage she missed the plank, and rolled 

In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom ; 160 

144. This Sir is the disclosure direct. Now their sex is 
known to all, and all the consequences of their rash intrusion 
must follow or be averted. 

148. Flee the death, due to such intruders. 

150. Doves. Cf. II, 87. 

149-152. Rearrange this inverted sentence so as to show 
the grammatical relation of the words. 

158. Cf. Ill, 18; II, 186. 

159. Blind with rage. — Ida's passion is in keeping with 
her will and her imagination. 

159-160. This event relieves the actors, the reader, and 
the situation and prepares for much that is to follow. 

160. From glow (of tripod flame) to gloom (of night and 
distress). 



CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. 125 

There whirled her white robe hke a blossomed branch 

Rapt to the horrible fall ; a glance 1 gave, 

No more ; but woman-vested as I was 

Plunged ; and the flood drew ; yet I caught her ; then 

Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left 165 

The weight of all the hopes of hall the world, 

Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree 

Was half-disrooted from his place, and stooped 

To drench his dark locks in the gurghng wave 

Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught, 170 

And grasping down the boughs I gained the shore. 

There stood her maidens glimmeringly grouped 
In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew 
My burthen from mine arms ; they cried, 'She lives:* 
They bore her back into the tent ; but I, 175 

So much a kind of shame within me wrought, 
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes. 
Nor found my friends ; but pushed alone on foot 
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 
Across the woods, and less from Indian craft 180 

162. Rapt.— Caught, hurried by the rapids. Compare 
other uses of the word. 

165. Oaring. Cf. II, 433. 

166. All the hopes of half the world. — Note the 
Prince's burden. Cf. II, 270. 

167. This is metrical onomatopoeia. 

170. Does this scene suggest Ophelia's death? Hamlet, 
IV, vii, 166. 

180. Indian craft. — Wood craft, knowledge of nature. 



126 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv 

Than beclike instinct hiveward, found at length 

The garden portals. Two great statues, Art 

And Science, Caryatids, lifted up 

A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves 

Of open-work in which the hunter rued 185 

His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 

Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 

Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates. 

A little space was left between the horns, 
Thro' which I clambered o'er at top with pain, 190 

Dropped on the sward, and up the linden walks, 
And, tossed on thoughts that changed from hue to 

hue. 
Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, 
I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheeled 
Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. 195 

A step 
Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 

181. Cf. II, 84. 

183. Caryatids. — Women of Caryae. The columns of 
support in Grecian architecture were frequently representa- 
tions of women generally with full draperies. 

184. Valves. — Double doors; here gates. 

185. The hunter. — Actaeon was turned into a stag for 
intruding upon Diana and her nymphs at bath. The punish- 
ment for intrusion is here turned to good artistic effect, and 
made to serve also as a warning. 

191. Linden walks. — Cf. I, 206. 

194. Paced. — Tennyson's favorite verb of motion. Cf. 48: 
II, 412; III, 325, etc. 

194. Bear. — The constellation. 



CANTO iv] A MEDLEY, 127 

Than female, moving" thro' the uncertain gloom, 

Disturbed me with the doubt 'If this were she?' 

But it was Florian. 'Hist, O hist,' he said, 

'They seek us; out so late is out of rules. 200 

Moreover, "Seize the strangers" is the cry. 

How came you here?' I told him: T,' said he, 

'Last of the train, a moral leper, I, 

To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, returned. 

Arriving all confused among the rest, 205 

With hooded brows I crept into the hall. 

And, couched behind a Judith, underneath 

The head of Holofernes peeped and saw. 

Girl after girl was called to trial ; each 

Disclaimed all knowledge of us ; last of all, 210 

Melissa; trust me. Sir, I pitied her. 

She, questioned if she knew us men, at first 

Was silent ; closer pressed, denied it not ; 

And then, demanded if her mother knew, 

Or Psyche, she affirmed not, or denied ; 215 

203. Moral leper. — Outcast. 

206. Cf. II, 337. 

207. For the story of Judith and Holofernes, see the 
Apocrypha. See also Cook's edition and translation of the 
old English poem. Judith. 

209. Trial, before the Princess (216), who on horseback 
(179) had reached the Academe before the Prince on foot 
(178). 

212. Us MEN — That is, knezv us to be men. 

214. Questioned, pressed, demanded, are used absolutely 
instead of clauses. Demanded — when it was demanded of 
her. 



128 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv 

From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her, 

Easily gathered either guilt. She sent 

For Psyche, but she was not there; she called 

For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors ; 

She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face ; 220 

And I slipped out; but whither will you now? 

And where are Psyche, Cyril? both are fled; 

What if together? That were not so well. 

Would rather we had never come ! I dread 

His wildness, and the chances of the dark." 225 

'And yet/ I said, 'you wrong him more than I 
That struck him; this is proper to the clown — 
Tho' smocked, or furred and purpled, still the clown — 
To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame 
That which he says he loves ; for Cyril, howe'er 230 

Pie deal in frolic, as to-night — the song 
Might have been worse, and sinned in grosser lips 
Beyond all pardon — as it is, I hold 
These flashes on the surface are not he. 

217. Either guilt.— The guilt of either, rather of each. 

219. The Princess is not only irascible and violent (159), 
but vindictive also. 

223-224. Florian is inclined to suspect Cyril's honesty and 
sincerity here as before. His suspicion is rebuked by the 
Prince. 

227. Clown. — This word does not seem strong enough. 
It is boor, knave. 

231. Frolic. — This gives the tone of his transient mood as 
set over against his permanent temperament, his true char- 
acter, 235. 



CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. 129 

He has a solid base of temperament ; 235 

But as the vvater-hly starts and shdes 
Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
Tho' anchored to the bottom, such is he.' 

Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near 
Two proctors leapt upon us, crying, 'Names;' 240 

He, standing still, was clutched ; but I began 
To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind 
And double in and out the boles, and race 
By all the fountains ; fleet I was of foot ; 
Before me showered the rose in flakes ; behind 245 

I heard the puffed pursuer ; at mine ear 
Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, 
And secret laughter tickled all my soul. 
At last I hooked my ankle in a vine 

That clasped the feet of a Mnemosyne, 250 

And falling on my face was caught and known. 

236. This beautiful simile, which Collins says the poet 
owed to Wordsworth (Excursion V), Tennyson says, was 
suggested to him by the action of lilies in his own pond on a 
gusty day. 

239-241. These lines recall no doubt a Cambridge scene, 

242. Thrid. — Thread; cf. Dream of Fair Women, 'Thrid- 
ding the sombre boscage of the wood.' Cf. also Dryden — 
'one thrids the brake.' Murky-circled. — Encircled by fra- 
grance, etc. 

243. Boles. — Trunks or bodies of trees. 

244. Cf. I, 215. 

245. Cf. I, 216; III, 106. 

247. Cf. In Memoriam, LXXXVIII. 

250. Mnemosyne. — Memory, the mother of the Muses, 
whose statues were in the court, II, 13. 



130 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv 

They haled us to the Princess, where she sat 
High in the hall ; above her drooped a lamp, 
And made the single jewel on her brow 
Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head, 255 

Prophet of storm. A handmaid on each side 
Bowed toward her, combing out her long black hair 
Damp from the river; and close behind her stood 
Eight daughters of the plow, stronger than men, 
Huge women, blowzed with health, and wind, 260 

and rain 
And labor. Each was like a Druid rock ; 
Or like a spire of land that stands apart 
Cleft from the main, and wailed about with mews. 

Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove 
An advent to the throne ; and there beside, 265 

Half-naked as if caught at once from bed 
And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 

252. Haled. — To drag violently. Cf. Ltike xii, 58; Acts 
VHI, 3. 

255. St. Elmo's Fire. Cf. Tiresias, no- 112. 

259. Daughters of the tlow, — Cf. 'sons of toil,' 'sons of 
the glebe.' This imposing bodyguard introduces the ele- 
ment of force. 

260. Blowzed. — Glowing with redness. 

261. Druid rock. — As for example Kit's Coty House 
(near Vivian Place). This stone formation was known 
from Saxon times, and is supposed to have suggested to 
Tennyson this figure, 

263. Wailed about with mews. — Surrounded by crying 
sea-mews, or gulls. 



CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. j^^ 

The lily-shining child ; and on the left, 
Bowed on her palms and folded up from wrong, 
Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, 
Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect 
Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 

'It was not thus, O Princess, in old days; 
You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips ; 
I led you then to all the Castalies ; 
I fed you with the milk of every Muse ; 
I loved you like this kneeler, and you me 
Your second mother ; those were gracious times. 

268. The lily-shining child, hke Cordelia in Shakes- 
peare's King Lear, may not be present in many scenes, but is, 
nevertheless, a privotal character around which the others 
turn. Cf. II, 96; VI, 176, etc. 

271. For details of the description of Melissa, cf. 143; II, 
301; III, 79; VII, 41 fif, etc. 

271-339- This address should be compared with Psyche's 
lecture (II, loi ff). Blanche appeals to the memory of olden 
days (I, 127; III, 69-70), and then jealousy recounts how 
Psyche had grown as she declined in favor. She had re- 
mained chiefly because of her selfish ambition to share the 
Princess' glory. Her jealousy of Lady Psyche leads her to 
false suspicions (296) of the Princess. She then contrasts 
Psyche's guilt with her watchfulness, and claims that she 
broke her oath for the public good. She attributes the de- 
tection of these wolves to her prudent delay, and boldly as- 
serts that she is essential to the Princess' plan. 

275. Castalies.— Castaly was a fountain of Parnassus. 
Its waters inspired with the gift of poetry. The Castalies 
seems to suggest various sources of inspiration. 
277. Kneeler.— Melissa. 271. 



270 



27! 



132 



THE PRINCESS: [canto iv 



Then came your new friend ; you began to change — 

I saw it and grieved — to slacken and to cool ; 280 

Till taken with her seeming openness 

You turned your warmer currents all to her ; 

To me you froze ; this was my meed for all. 

Yet I bore up, in part from ancient love, 

And partly that I hoped to win you back, 285 

And partly conscious of my own deserts. 

And partly that you were my civil head. 

And chiefly you were born for somethmg great, 

In which I might your fellow-worker be. 

When time should serve ; and thus a noble scheme 290 

Grew up from seed we two long since had sown ; 

In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd, 

Up in one night and due tO' sudden sun. 

We took this palace; but even from the first 

You stood in your ow^n light and darkened mine. 295 

What student came but that you planed her path 

To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, 

A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, 

I your old friend and tried, she new in all? 

But still her lists were swelled and nnne were lean ; 300 



280. Cf. Shakespeare's Julius Ccrsar, IV, ii, 20, for similai 
description of cooling friendship. 

281. Seeming,— Cf. II, 289. 

285-287. Note parallelism. For other examples, cf. Prl 
44-47; II, 56-58, etc. 

292. Cf. Jonah iv, 5-I1. 

298. Foreigner.— Of the Prince's country. Cf. I, 74; II 
243 ff. 



CAJJtoiv] A MEDLEY. 



133 



Yet I bore up in hope she would be known. 

Then came these wolves; they knew her; they 

endured, 
Long-closeted with her the yestermorn, 
To tell her what they were, and she to hear; 
And me none told; not less to an eye like mine, 305 

A lidless watcher of the public weal, 
Last night their mask was patent, and my foot 
Was to you ; but I thought again ; I feared 
To meet a cold "We thank you, we shall hear of it 
From Lady Psyche ;" you had gone to her, 310 

She told, perforce ; and winning easy grace. 
No doubt, for slight delay, remained among us 
In our young nursery still unknown, the stem 
Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat 
Were all miscounted as malignant haste 3^5 

To push my rival out of place and power. 
But public use required she should be known; 
And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 

302. Endured. — Remained. 

305. Cf. II, 427; III, 30, 115; VI, 310, etc. 

306. Lidless. — With eyes never closed. 

308. I THOUGHT AGAIN. — The ical cause of her delay may; 
be found in Cyril's pleading; cf. Ill, 118-151. 

3TO-311. If you had gone to her, she would have told you, 
perforce. 

313-314. The stem less grain than touchwood. — That 
is, in stem (or character) less grain (true fibre, acting on 
principle) than touchwood (inflammable material, acting by 
impulsed. For grain, cf. V, 517; VI, 34. 

318. Public use. — For the weal of this College. Each of 
these leaders claims to sacrifice personal to public good. 



134 THE PRINCESS : [canto iv 

I broke the letter of it to'keep the sense. 

I spoke not then at first, but watched them well, 320 

Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done; 

And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) 

I came to tell you ; found that you had gone, 

Ridden to the hills, she likewise ; now I thought. 

That surely she will speak ; if not, then I ; 325 

Did she? These monsters blazoned what they were, 

According to the coarseness of their kind, 

For thus I hear; and known at last (my work) 

And full of cowardice and guilty ehame — 

I grant in her some sense of shame — she hies; 330 

And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, 

I, that have lent my life to build up yours, 

I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time, 

And talent, I — you know it — I will not boast ; 

Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, 335 

Divorced from my experience, will be chaff 

For every gust of chance, and men will say 

We did not know the real light, but chased 

The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread.' 

She ceased ; the Princess answered coldly, 'Good ; 340 
Your oath is broken ; we dismiss you ; go. 

326. Cf. IV, 139- 

328. Why does Lady Blanche claim credit for the supposed 
disclosure of Lady Psyche's true character? 

335. This challenge is accepted with splendid dignity in 

341. 

339. Will o' the Wisp. 
341. Cf. 319 and 335. 



CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. 135 

For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child), 
Our mind is changed ; we take it to ourself/ 

Thereat the Lady stretched a vulture throat, 
And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 345 

'The plan was mine. I built the nest,' she said, 
'To hatch the cuckoo. Rise !' and stooped to updrag 
Melissa ; she, half on her mother propped, 
Half-drooping from her, turned her face, and cast 
A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, 350 

343. Has the Princess expressed heretofore her mind as 
to this child? (219). Why does she take it to herself — for love 
of children? (Ill, 234), for pity toward this lost lamb? 
(342), for an answer to Blanche's accusation? (329), or for 
Psyche's punishment? (V, 81 and VI, 205). 

344. Cf. VULTURE with the noun-significance of haggard. 
To what animals has Blanche been compared? 

347. Cuckoo. — This bird does not build its own nest, but 
uses the nest of other birds, and leaves its young thus hatched 
to these alien mothers. 

347. Who is the cuckoo? First, Ida, because the whole 
expression is vaguely figurative, and simply means that 
Blanche has built and Ida will destroy. Second, Psyche, 
because Blanche may believe that her dismissal means the 
restoration of Psyche to^ower. Her nest will be given to 
a 'foreign' intruder. Third, Aglaia, the lost lamb, because 
Blanche, who is ambitious for Melissa (VII, 41) now sees 
that Ida's adoption of Psyche's child (343) means that her 
own is transplanted. Melissa, the child of the nest, must give 
way to Agla'ia, the cuckoo-birdling. This third explanation 
is perhaps the correct one. 

350. Melissa's choice between Ida and Blanche has been 
made before. 



136 THE PRINCESS: [canto rv 

Which melted Florlan's fancy as she hung, 

A Niobean daughter, one arm out, 

Appeahng to the bolts of Heaven ; and while 

We gazed upon her came a little stir 

About the doors, and on a sudden rushed 355 

Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, 

A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear 

Stared in her eyes, and chalked her face, and winged 

Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell 

Delivering sealed dispatches, which the Head 360 

Took half-amazed, and in her lion's mood 

Tore open, silent we with blind surmise 

Regarding while she read, till over brow 

And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom 

As of some fire against a stormy cloud, 365 

When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick 

Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens ; 

For anger most It seemed, while now her breast, 

Beaten with some great passion at her heart, 

Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 370 

In the dead hush the papers that she held 

352. Niobean. — Read the sto^v of Niobe. Landor's 
Niobe; Frederic Tennyson's Niobc, etc. 

357. Cf. I, 187. 

358. Chalked. — Cf. Ill, 9, and note. 

366. Rick burning as a means of righting wrongs, real or 
fancied, was not unusual in the days preceding the Reform 
Movement (1832). Cf. To Mary Boyle. 

369. Is the GREAT PASSION here used synonomously with 
anger, rather as inclusive of it, or is it used technically, la 
grande passion? Cf. »VII, 222. 



CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. I37 

Rustle ; at once the lost lamb at her feet 

Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam ; 

The plaintive cry jarred on her ire ; slie crushed 

The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 375 

As if to speak, but, utterance failing her, 

She whirled them on to me, as who should say 

'Read,' and I read — two letters — one her sire's. 

'Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way 
We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt, 380 
We, conscious of what temper you are built, 
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell 
Into his father's hands, who has this night, 
You lying close upon his territory, 

Slipped round and in the dark invested you ; 385 

And here he keeps me hostage for his son/ 

The second was my father's, running thus : 
*You have our son ; touch not a hair of his head ; 
Render him up unscathed ; give him your hand ; 
Cleave to your contract ; tho' indeed we hear 390 

You hold the woman is the better man — 
A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 

^72. The figure of line 342 is repeated and sustained. 

375. Is the selection of the word 'scrolls' intended to hint 
at an early date for the events? 

'i'7']. Whirled. — The royal Princess may be petulant as 
well as angry. As who. — As one who, etc. 

384. The Prince and the Princess were not so far apart in 
their respective kingdoms. 

390. Cleave. — Cf. 264. 



138 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv 

Would make all women kick against their lords 
Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve 
That we this night should pluck your palace down ; 395 
And we will do it, unless you send us back 
Our son, on the instant, whole.' 

So far I read ; 
And then stood up and spoke impetuously. 

*0 not to pry and peer on your reserve, 
But led by golden wishes and a hope 4oo 

The child of regal compact, did I break 
Your precinct ; not a scorner of your sex 
But venerator, zealous it should be 
All that it might be ; hear me, for I bear, 
Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs, 405 

From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life 
Less mine than yours ; my nurse would tell me of you ; 
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon, 
Vague brightness ; when a boy you stooped to me 
From all high places, lived in all fair lights, 4i'-> 

Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south 

391. Ida had claimed nothing but equality. 

393. Kick against.— Biblical ; cf. Acts, ix, 5. 

395. Cf. Shakespeare's Julius Ccrsar, III, iii, 262-263. 

400. A comma after 'hope' is expected. 

402. Cf. VII, 239 ff. 

405. Whatso'er your wrongs. — This is not the object of 
bear as at first reading it seems, but an elliptical dependent 
clause. 

406. The Prince is a blonde. 

411. Rapt.— Snatched; cf. IV, 162. 



CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. 139 

And blown to inmost north ; at eve and dawn 

With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods ; 

The leader wildswan in among the stars 

Would clang it,and lapt in wreaths of glowworm nght4i5 

The mellow breaker murmured Ida. Now, 

Because I would have reached you, had you been 

Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned 

Persephone in Hades, now at length. 

Those winters of abeyance all worn out, 420 

A man I came to see you ; but, indeed. 

Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, 

O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 

On you, their centre ; let me say but this. 

That many a famous man and woman, town 425 

And landskip, have I heard of, after seen 

The dwarfs of presage; tho' when known, there grew 

Another kind of beauty in detail 

Made them worth knowing ; but in you I lound 

415. Clang.— Cf. Ill, 90, and note. Glowworm.— Phos- 
phorescent. 

418. Cassiopeia, the wife of Cepheus, king of the Ethio- 
pians. The constellation named after her is in accordance 
with the tradition that she was placed in the heavens, but 
so near the North Pole that a part of the time her head was 
downward that she might learn humility. 

419. Persephone. — (Proserpina) was the wife of Hades, 
who ruled in Hades. 

422. Frequence. — Company; cf. Milton's Paradise Re- 
gained, IT, 130. 

426. Landskip. — Landscape ; cf. Milton's L' Allegro, I, 70. 

427. Dwarfs of presage.— That is, far less than they 
promised to be. Cf. I, 72. 



I^O THE PRINCESS: [ganto iV 

My boyish dream involved and dazzled down 430 

And mastered, while that after-beauty makes 

Such head from act to act, from hour to hour, 

Within me, that except you slay me here, 

According to your bitter statute-book, 

I cannot cease to follow you, as they say 435 

The seal does music ; who desire you more 

Than growing boys their manhood ; dying lips, 

With many thousand matters left to do, 

The breath of life ; O more than poor men wealth 

Than sick men health — yours, yours, not mine — but 440 

half 
Without you ; with you, whole ; and of those halves 
You worthiest ; and howe'er you block and bar 
Your heart with system out from mine, I hold 
That it becomes no man to nurse despair, 
But in the teeth of clenched antagonisms 445 

To follow up the worthiest till he die; 
Yet that I came not all unauthorized, 
Behold your father's letter.' 

On one knee 
Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dashed 

430. Dazzled down. — His dream was thrown into insig 
nificance by the dazzling reality. 

431. Cf. 428. 
434. Cf. H, 178. 

436. Is this well authenticated? 
440. Cf. VH, 284. (I am) yours, etc. 
443. System.— Cf. VI, 178. 

445. Note arrangement of words. Cf. 'clenched teeth* of 
antagonisms. 

448. This letter is not that of 379, but of I, 158, 173. 



CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. 141 

Unopened at her feet ; a tide of fierce 450 

Invective seemed to wait behind her lips, 

As waits a river level with the dam, 

Ready to burst and flood the world with foam ; 

And so she would have spoken, but there rose 

A hubbub in the court of half the maids 455 

Gathered together ; from the illumined hall 

Long lanes of splendor slanted o'er a press 

Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, 

And rainbow robes, and gems and genihke eyes, 

And gold and golden heads ; they to and fro 46a 

Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale, 

All open-mouthed, all gazing to the light. 

Some crying there was an army in the land, 

And some that men were in the very w^alls. 

And some they cared not ; till a clamor grew 465 

As of a new-world Babel, woman-built. 

And worse-confounded; high above them stood 

The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 



451. Another illustration of her passion. Cf. 369. 

456. From 195, 200, 383, 543 determine the hour and com- 
pare I, 204. These girls were losing beauty sleep in imitat- 
ing men's habits of turning night into day. 

458. They were in low necked dresses. Cf. 43, 270, 364, 
etc. Herded ewes; cf. VI, 69. 

460. Cf. Prl. 142. 

465. Cared not. — This is not the first note of discontent 
we have heard. 

466. Cf. 59 and note. Cf. also Paradise Lost, XII, 51 ff. 
and 11, 996. 



142 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv 

Not peace she looked, the Head ; but rising up 
Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so 470 

To the open window moved, remaining there 
Fixed like a beacon-tower above the waves 
Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye 
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light 
Dash themselves dead. She stretched her arms and 

called 475 

Across the tumult, and the tumult fell. 

'What fear ye, brawlers ? am not I your Head ? 
On me, me, me, the storm first breaks ; / dare 
All these male thunderbolts; what is it ye fear? 
Peace ! there are those to avenge us, and they come ; g^ 
If not, — myself were like enough, O girls, 
To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, 

469 ff. This passage was classed by Tennyson among his 
finest blank verse 

470. Is DEEP an adjective of color or opulence? 

472. A favorite figure. Cf. Enoch Ardcn; Longfellow's 
Lighthouse, etc. 

473. Has Tennyson any particular lighthouse in mind? 
Crimson-rolling refers to a revolving light, perhaps alter- 
nating white and crimson. 

476. Cf. The 'peace, b"' still' of Christ; Mark iv, 39. 

479. Cf. II, 205. 

480. The Princess trusts now to male defenders. Cf. V, 
281-285. If the comma before and is omitted, as in most 
editions, the and is simply the copulative conjunction. If it 
is inserted, then and suggests an, the conditional form, and 
implies doubt in the mind of the Princess. 

482. Maiden. — This may mean iirst, or maiden speech, or 
it may mean for the rights of maids, which was the purpose 
of the Academe. 



490 



495 



CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. 143 

And clad in iron burst the ranks of war, 

Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause, 

Die ; yet I blame you not so much for fear ; 485 

Six thousand years of fear have made you that 

From which I would redeem you ; but for those 

That stir this hubbub— you and you— I know 

Your faces there in the crowd— to-morrow morn 

We hold a great convention ; then shall they 

That love their voices more than duty, learn 

With whom they deal, dismissed in shame to live 

No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, 

Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame. 

Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, 

The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, 

Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, 

But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum. 

To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, 

For ever slaves at home and fools abroad.' 5oo 

She, ending, waved her hands ; thereat the crowd 
Muttering, dissolved ; then with a smile that looked 

483 Cf Prl 40. This line suggests Joan of Arc. 
4S4. PR0T0MARTYR.-Cf. Stephen, the Christian proto- 
martyr, Acts vii, 59-60. 

485. Psyche would sacrifice her child (II, 267) ; Ida. her- 

486. That. -For the connotation of this word cf. Prl. 

127; II, 107 ff; 136, etc. 

493-500. Woman's status. This is an ex parte descrip- 
tion drawn in wrath. 

494. Cf. II, 78 and note; VI, 321. Is Ma thmkmg of 

Blanche? 3^9 f^- 



144 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv 

A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cHff, 

When all the glens are drowned in azure gloom 

Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said : 505 

'You have done well, and like a gentleman, 
And like a prince ; you have our thanks for all ; 
And you look well too in your woman's dress ; 
Well have you done, and like a gentleman. 
You saved our life; we owe you bitter thanks; 510 

Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood — 
Then men had said — but now — What hinders me 
To take such bloody vengeance on you both ? — 
Yet since our father — Wasps in our good hive, 
You would-be quenchers of the light to be, 515 

Barbarians, grosser than your native bears — 
O would I had his sceptre for one hour ! 

503~505- Find this picture in nature some day. 

505. Floated. — Note this verb of motion. Cf. VI, jt^. Ci. 
also his favorite verb, pace. 

506-527. The mood of the Princess here is predominantly 
that of fierce wrath, but it seems to be varied by genuine, 
but bitter gratitude and distinct sarcasm. 

506. This is probably ironical. 
508. Is this sarcasm? Cf. V, 15 ff. 

510. This is enforced gratitude. Cf. V, 397. 

511. Does the Princess' wrath lead her into confusion of 
speech ? To 'spill bones' is not a usual phrase. 

514. Cf. II, 84. 

516. Native bears.— Does this mean bears of the north, 
i. e., Polar bears? Barbarians, monsters and other epithets 
are frequent. 

517. This refers to her father. 514. 



CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. 145 

You that have dared to break our bound, and gulled 
Our servants, wronged and lied and thwarted us — 
/ wed with thee ! / bound by precontract 520 

Your bride, your bondslave ! not tho' all the gold 
That veins the world were packed to make your 

crown, 
And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, 
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us ; 
I trample on your offers and on you ; 525 

Begone ! we will not look upon you more. 
Here, push them out at gates/ 

In wrath she spake. 
Then those eight mighty daughters of the plow 
Bent their broad faces toward us, and addressed 
Their motion ; twice I sought to plead my cause, 530 

But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands, 
The weight of destiny ; so from her face 
They pushed us, down tlie steps, and thro' the court. 
And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates. 

We crossed the street, and gained a petty mound 535 
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 

519. Cf. I, 178; I, 235, etc. 

520. Cf. I, 33; III, 191, 210; IV, 401 ; V, III, 269, 290, 388. 

522. With this oath, compare Canto VII. 

523. Lord.— That is, proclaim you lord. The phrasing is 
biblical. 

527. This climax of a tornado of wrath throws doubt on 
the sincerity of her gratitude; cf. VI, 92. 
532. Cf. 166. 
535. Cf. I, 211. 



1^6 THE PRINCESS; [canto iv 

The voices murmuring. While I listened, came 

On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt ; 

I seemed to move among a world of ghosts ; 

The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard, 540 

The jest and earnest working side by side, 

The cataract and the tumult and the kings 

Were shadows ; and the long fantastic night 

With all its doings had and had not been. 

And all things were and were not. 

This went by 545 

As strangely as it came, and on my spirits 
Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy ; 
Not long ; I shook it ofif ; for spite of doubts 
And sudden ghostly shadowings, I was one 
To whom the touch of all mischance but came 55o 

As night to him that sitting on a hill 
Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun 
Set into sunrise ; then we moved away. 

538. This 'weird seizure' follows upon the full confession 
of his own overwhelming devotion and her wrathful scorn 
of his love, its avowal, and himself. It is not the result of 
intent gazing as in III, 166, but of intent listening. Artisti- 
cally this seizure between the unreal and the real, the were 
and the were not, the jest and seriousness, is significant. It 
is the dividing line between the comedy and the tragedy of 
the poem. 

547. The outcome of the last seizure (III, 166) was pas- 
sion. The outcome of this is gentle melancholy. Is the 
Prince changing? The Prince's mood is now hopeful. 



interlude] a medley. 1 47 



INTERLUDE. 

[The Battle Call sung by Lilia is the harbinger of the stir- 
ring events of the next two Cantos. But she wishes not only 
a fight, but in the end that her heroine may be 'good and 
great.' This desire finds its full satisfaction in Canto VII, as 
she herself in the Conclusion testifies. — Ed.] 

[The Battle Call.] 

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 

That beat to battle where he stands ; 
Thy face across his fancy comes, 

And gives the battle to his hands; 
A moment, while the trumpets blow. 

He sees his brood about thy knee; 
The next, like fire he meets the foe. 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 

So Lilia sang; we thought her half-possessed, 
She struck such warbling fury thro' the words ; 

The wife and weans nerve the warrior to battle. This 
intercalary poem is The Battle Call, fitly placed here since the 
medley now changes from jest to earnestness. Lilia's heroisn 
is kindled, and she urges 'some grand fight' to make all 'great 
and good.' There are other forms of this poem, but its 
present form, a double quatrain of alternate rhyme is the 
most acceptable. Note that the child's influence is not lost 
from sight. 

9. Lilia. — She is the only one of the 'ladies' (Prl. 233) 
mentioned by name, as singing some 'ballad or song.' 

10. Cf. IV, 41. The tone of this Tennysonian music is 
martial and passionate. 



148 THE PRINCESS: [interlude 

And, after feigning pique at what she called 

The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime — 

Like one that wishes at a dance to change 

The music — clapped her hands and cried for war, 

Or some grand fight to kill and make an end ; 15 

And he that next inherited the tale 

Half turning to the broken statue, said, 

'Sir Ralph has got your colors; if I prove 

Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me ?' 

It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb 20 

Lay by her, like a model of her hand. 

She took it and she flung it. 'Fight,' she said, 

*And make us all we would be, great and good.' 

He knightlike in his cap instead of casque, 

A cap of Tyrol borrowed from the hall, 25 

Arranged the favor, and assumed the Prince. 

13. The purpose of this interkide is to mark the change in 
the 'medley's' progress. 

16. The seven Cantos are told by the 'seven' (Prl. 131) at 
Vivian Place. Cf. Concl. 8. The fifth narrator takes up the 
story. 

17. Cf. Prl. 99. 

23. Lilia's ideal was Greatness (Prl. 131), now she adds 
Goodness too. This is analogous to Ida's growth in aim. 

23. Lilia's injunction indicates the further development of 
the poem and its satisfactory outcome, Cf. VII. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 1 49 



V. 



[THE FOUGHTEN FIELD.] 

[The Prince and Florian are admitted to camp, where Cyril 
tells of finding Psyche, who now bemoans her lost babe, and 
promises much on its return. Gama is released, but is told 
that he must fulfil the compact or stand war. The parley is 
continued between the Prince and Arac. The Prince refuses 
to surrender his compact, and a tourney, with fifty on a side 
and Ida as the prize, is agreed on. The battle described and 
the Prince's fall. — Ed.] 

Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, 
We stumbled on a stationary voice, 
And 'Stand, who goes?' 'Two from the palace,' L 
'The second two ; they wait,' he said ; 'pass on ; 
His Highness wakes ;' and one that clashed in arms, 
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led, 
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
From blazoned lions o'er the imperial tent 
Whispers of war. 

:. Mound.— Cf. IV, 535. 

2. Stationary. — The voice of one stationed, a sentinel. 
4. The second two. — Cf. IV, 222. 
7. Threading.— Cf. IV, 242. 

9. Is there a clue to nationality in the 'blazoned lions?* 
Cf. British cns.ign. 



I50 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

Enteringf, the sudden light '^ 

Dazed me half-bhnd ; I stood and seemed to hear, 
As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes 
A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies, 
Each hissing in his neighbor's ear ; and then 
A strangled titter, out of which there brake i^ 

On all sides, clamoring etiquette to death. 
Unmeasured mirth ; while now the two old kings 
Began to wag their baldness up and down. 
The fresh young captains flashed their glittering 

teeth, 
The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew, 20 
And slain with laughter rolled the gilded Squire, 

At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears, 
Panted from weary sides, 'King, you are free ! 
We did but keep you surety for our son. 
If this be he, — or a draggled mawkin, thoU, ^S 

That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge 'J 

12. Ci. I, 96; Swinburne's Song in Atalantd tti Catydon. 

15. Innumerous. — Cf. VII, 207. 

16. Clamoring. ... to death. — Dcstfoylttg all eti- 
quette by clamor. 

17. This seems to emphasize the Irony of IV, 50^. 

20. Bush-bearded Barons. — They seem to be Teutons. 

21. Slain, — This hyperbole is too strong. Gilded SyuiRfi. 
The knight's attendant in glittering array. 

22. How completely ludicrous the Prince ill Woman's garb 
was is best described in this effect on the rough king. 

25. Mawkin. — Malkin — menial servant; here a swineherd. 

26. Bristled grunters in the sludge. — Prosaically, pigs 
in the mire. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 15I 

For I was drenched with ooze, and torn with briers, 
More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath, 
And all one rag; disprinced from head to heel. 
Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm 30 

A whispered jest to some one near him, 'Look, 
He has been among his shadows.' 'Satan take 
The old women and their shadows ! (thus the King 
Roared) make yourself a man to fight with men. 
Go ; Cyril told us all.' 

As boys that slink 35 

From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye, 
Away we stole, and transient in a trice 
From what was left of faded woman-slough 
To sheathing splendors and the golden scale 
Of harness, issued in the sun, that now 40 

Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, 
And hit the Northern hills. Here Cyril met us, 
A little shy at first, but by and by 
We twain, with mutual pardon asked and given 
For stroke and song, resoldered peace, whereon 45 

Followed his tale. Amazed he fled away 
Thro' the dark land, and later in the night 
Had come on Psyche weeping : 'Then we fell 

29. Disprinced.— Unprinced. This is a Miltonic analogy. 

32. Cf. I, 14, etc. 

ZJ. Transient. — Passing, changing, etc. 

38. Woman-slough (sluf). — Covering, dress; cf. St. 
Simeon Stylites. Cf. also Shakespeare's 2 Henry Vl^ III, i, 
229. 

44. Cf. IV, 145, for the occasion of the 'mutual pardon.' 



152 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

Into your father's hand, and there she Hes, 
But will not speak, nor stir.' 

He showed a tent 50 

A stone-shot off ; we entered in, and there 
Among piled arms and rough accoutrements, 
Pitiful sight, wrapped in a soldier's cloak, 
Like some sweet sculpture draped frcmi head to foot, 
And pushed by rude hands from its pedestal, 55 

All her fair length upon the ground she lay ; 
And at her head a follower of the camp, 
A charred and wrinkled piece of womanhood, 
Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 

Then Florian knelt, and 'Come,' he whispered to 
her, 60 

'Lift up your head, sweet sister ; lie not thus. 
What have you done but right ? you could not slay 
Me, nor your prince ; look up ; be comforted ; 
Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought. 
When fallen in darker ways.' And likewise 1 : 65 

'Be comforted ; have I not lost her too. 
In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
That none has else for me?' She heard, she moved. 
She moaned, a folded voice ; and up she sat, 

50. See next intercalary poem, second stanza, fourth line, 
etc. 

58. See next intercalary poem, last stanza. 

65. Fallen.— Cf. Use in Bible, Shakespeare, Milton, etc. 

69. Folded voice. — Does this mean bent back upon itself, 
or from within folds of drapery? In either case it is muffled. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 153 

And raised the cloak from brows as pale and smooth 70 
As those that mourn half-shrouded over death 
In deathless marble. 'Her,' she said, 'my friend — 
Parted from her — betrayed her cause and mine — 
Where shall I breathe? Why kept ye not your faith? 
O base and bad! What comfort? none for me!' 7; 

To whom remorseful Cyril, 'Yet I pray 
Take comfort ; live, dear lady, for your child!' 
At which she lifted up her voice and cried : 

'Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, my child, 
My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more! 80 

For now will cruel Ida keep her back ; 
And either she will die from want of care, 
Or sicken with ill-usage, when they say 
"The child is hers" — for every little fault, 
"The child is hers ;" and they will beat my girl 85 

Remembering her mother; O my flower! 
Or they will take her, they will make her hard. 
And she will pass me by in after-life 

71. This recalls an Italian Campo Santo with its marble 
figures of the living posed over the marble images of the 
dead. 

74- Cf. ir, 275-280. 

T/. Cyril may sometimes be tactless, but he has learned 
Psyche's nature. Compare next poem, last stanza. 

79-102. This lament when compared with Constance's 
Lament in King John, Wordsworth's AMtction of Margaret, 
and others is not worthy of the highest commendation. We 
are not here swept away by any motherly passion. 

81. Cf. IV, 343, note. 



1^4 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

With some cold reverence worse than were she dead. 

Ill mother that I was to leave her there, 9d 

To lag behind, scared by the cry they made, 

The horror of the shame among them all ; 

But I will go and sit beside the doors, 

And make a wild petition night and day, 

Until they hate to hear me like a wind 95 

Wailing for ever, till they open to me, 

And lay my little blossom at my feet. 

My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child ; 

And I will take her up and go my way. 

And satisfy my soul with kissing her ; too 

Ah ! what might that man not deserve of me 

Who gave me back my child?' 'Be comforted,' 

Said Cyril, 'you shall have it ;' but again 

She veiled her brows, and prone she sank, and so, 

Like tender things that being caught feign death, 105 

Spoke not, nor stirred. 

By this a murmur ran 
Thro' all the camp, and inward raced the scouts 
With rumor of Prince Arac hard at hand. 
We left her by the woman, and without 
Found the gray kings at parle ; and 'Look you,' cried no 

loi. The challenge which Cyril accepts. Cf. VT, 171 ; VII, 
68. 

108. Cf. IV, 4^0. 

no. Parle.— Parley. Cf. Milton's Samson Agonistcs, 785. 
The parley is as to war. The Prince's father favored war; 
the Prince opposes it, and Gama sides with the Prince; 
but Arac later (287) forces the issue, and it is war. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 155 

My father, 'that our compact be fulfilled ; 

You have spoilt this child ; she laughs at 5^ou and 

man ; 
She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him; 
But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire; 
She yields, or war.' 

Then Gama turned to me: 115 

'We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time 
With our strange girl; and yet they say that still 
You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large; 
How say you, war or not ?' 

'Not war, if possible, 
O king,' I said, 'lest from the abuse of war, 120 

The desecrated shrine, the trampled year. 
The smoldering homestead, and the household flower 
Torn from the lintel — all the common wrong — 
A smoke go up, thro' which I loom to her 
Three times a monster; now she lightens scorn 125 

At him that mars her plan, but then would hate 
(And every voice she talked with ratify it. 
And every face she looked on justify it) 
The general foe. More soluble is this knot 
By gentleness than war. I want her love. ^3o 

What were I nigher this altho' we dashed 

114. Red FACED.—This epithet suggests bloodiness. 
122. Cf. Prl. 164. Is this, however, figurative? 

124. Loom. — Appear enlarged. 

125. Lightens. — Fulmines, which is much used by Milton. 
129. Do we solve knots? But the Prince is no purist in 

language. 



156 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

Your cities into shards with catapults? 

She would not love ; — or brought her chained, a slave, 

The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord? 

Not ever would she love ; but brooding turn 135 

The book of scorn, till all my flitting chance 

Were caught within the record of her wrongs, 

And crushed to death ; and rather, Sire, than this 

I would the old God of war himself were dead, 

Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, ^40 

Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wM'eck, 

Or like an old-world mammoth bulked in ice, 

Not to be molten out.' 

And roughly spake 
My father, 'Tut, you know them not, the girls. 
Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think H6 

That idiot legend credible. Look you, Sir! 
Man is the hunter ; woman is his game ; 
The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, 
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; 
They love us for it, and we ride them down. 150 

132. Shards. — Fragments. 

134. Suggests the affected songs of the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury Court poets to their mistresses' eyebrows. 

139. A pagan god (Mars) is written with a capital, while 
the appellations of the Deity are not always so honored. 

141. Have you seen these on our coast? 

142. Bulked.— Cf. 'sphered,' IV, 418. 

144. You KNOW THEM NOT, THE GIRLS. — Collate the views 
of woman held by the various persons of this poem. 

148. This line suggests deer, but the next his more usual 
comparison with wild cats, tigers, etc. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 157 

Wheedling and siding with them! Out! for shame! 

Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them 

As he that does the thing they dare not do, 

Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes 

With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in 155 

Among the women, snares them by the score 

Flattered and flustered, wins, tho' dashed with death 

He reddens what he kisses ; thus I won 

Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, 

Worth winning; but this firebrand — gentleness 1^0 

To such as her ! If Cyril spake her true, 

To catch a dragon in a cherry net. 

To trip a tigress with a gossamer. 

Were wisdom to it.' 

'Yea, but, Sire,' I cried, 
'Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier? No: ^^5 
What dares not Ida do that she should prize 
The soldier? I beheld her, when she rose 
The yesternight and storming in extremes, 
Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down 
Gagelike to man, and had not shunned the death, 170 

No, not the soldier's; yet I hold her, king. 
True woman ; but you clash them all in one, 

157. Dashed with death.— Cf. 'bespattered with blood.' 
— Shakespeare's Julius Cccsar, III, i. 206. 

162. Cherry net. — A net to protect trees from birds. 

168. Cf. IV, 469 ff. 

172. True woman. — That is, at heart womanly in spite of 
her man-like actions. Clash ... in one. — Force them 
all in the same class. 



158 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

That have as many dififerences as we. 

The violet varies from the hly as far 

As oak from ehn ; one loves the soldier, one 175 

The silken priest of peace, one this, one that. 

And some unworthily ; their sinless faith, 

A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty, 

Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need 

More hreadth of culture; is not Ida right? iSo 

They worth it? truer to the law within? 

Severer in the logic of a life? 

Twice as magnetic to sweet influences 

Of earth and heaven? And she of whom you speak, 

My mother, looks as whole as some serene 1S5 

Creation minted in the golden moods 

Of sovereign artists; not a thought, a touch, 

But pure as lines of green that streak the white 

Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves; I say, 

Not like the piebald miscellany, man, igo 

Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire, 

But whole and one ; and take them all-in-all, 

Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind, 

177. Their sinless faith (is like) a maiden moon, etc. 
180. The Prince expresses his views more fully in VII, 
239 ff- 

185. Cf. VII, 298 ff, and VII, 315. Not an ideal, but a 
model. 

186. The artist produces his best work in his best mood. 
190.. Piebald. — Diversified, variegated, lacking unity, etc. 
193. This opinion of woman is amplified in Canto VII, 

but this opinion of man seems to have been the outcome of 
an ardent defense of the other sex. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. jcq 

As truthful, much that Ida claims as right 

Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs 195 

As dues of Nature. To our point : not war; 

Lest I lose all.' 

'Nay, nay, you spake but sense,' 
Said Gama. 'We remember love ourself 
In our sweet youth ; we did not rate him then 
This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows. 200 

You talk almost like Ida ; she can talk ; 
And there is something in it, as you say ; 
But you talk kindlier ; we esteem you for it. — 
He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, 
I would he had our daughter; for the rest, 205 

Our own detention, why, the causes weighed. 
Fatherly fears — you used us courteously — 
We would do much to gratify your Prince — 
We pardon it ; and for your ingress here 
Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land, 210 

You did but come as goblins in the night, 
Nor in the furrow broke the plowman's head, 
Nor burnt the grange, nor bussed the milklng- 

maid. 
Nor robbed the farmer of his bowl of cream ; 
But let your Prince (our royal word upon it, 215 

He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, 

201. This line is the testimony of a third party to the in- 
teresting fact that the Prince and the Princess are converging 
in views. 

209-214. The approach of the old king was spook-like, but 
not baleful. Cf. Milton's L' Allegro, 105. 



l6o THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

And speak with Arac; Arac's word is thrice 

As ours with Ida ; something may be done — 

I know not what — and ours shall see us friends. 

You likewise, our late guests, if so you will, 220 

Follow us; who knows? we four may build some 

plan 
Foursquare to opposition.' 

Here he reached 
White hands of farewell to my sire, who growled 
An answer which, half-muffled in his beard, 
Let so much out as gave us leave to go. 225 

Then rode we with the old king across the lawns 
Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring 
In every bole, a song on every spray 
Of birds that piped their Valentines, and woke 
Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 230 

In the old king's ears, who promised help, and oozed 
All o'er with honeyed answer as we rode ; 
And blossom-fragrant slipped the heavy dews 

217. Arac— Cf. 108, I, 152, etc. 

221. We four. — Gama, the Prince, Cyril, and Florian. 

222. Foursquare. — This term is biblical. Exodus xxvii. I. 
Cf. also Ode to Wellington. 

227. Cf. Talking Oak, 84, 173. The age of a tree is con- 
jectured from the rings on the trunk (bole). These were a 
thousand (indefinite) years old. 

229. Valentines. — Love songs, but with no hint of time 
(February 14th). 

231. Gama is belittled in every description of him. 



CANTO vj A MEDLEY. l6i 

Gathered by night and peace, with each light air 

On our mailed heads ; but other thoughts than peace 235 

Burnt in us when we saw the embattled squares 

And squadrons of the Prince, tranTpling the flowers 

With clamor ; for among them rose a cry 

As if to greet the king: they made a halt; 

The horses yelled ; they clashed their arms ; the 

drum 2 

Beat ; merrily-blowing shrilled the martial fife ; 
And in the blast and bray of the long horn 
And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 
The banner. Anon to meet us lightly pranced 
Three captains out ; nor ever had I seen 245 

Such thews of men ; the midmost and the highest 
Was Arac; all about his motion clung 
The shadow of his sister, as the beam 
Of the East, that played upon them, made them glance 
Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone, 250 

That glitter burnished by the frosty dark; 
And as the fiery Sirius alters hue, 

22)7. This Prince is Arac. 

237-244. Study these sounds and their vocal designations. 
Onomatopoeia. 

240. Yelled. — Is this a good descriptive word here? 

245. Cf. I, 152. 

246. Thews of men. — Men of thews, t. e., of muscle. 

247. Ida was a feminine reflection of this gigantic brother. 
250. Airy Giant's zone. — Orion's belt. 

252. SiRius. — The summer star, the star of the dog-days, 
the dog-star with its fiery red, but varying color. Cf. Iliad, 
V, 4-6. 



l62 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

And bickers Into red and emerald, shone 

Their morions, washed with morning, as they came. 

And I that prated peace, when first I heard 255 

War-music, felt the blind wild-beast of force, 
Whose home is in the sinews of a man. 
Stir in me as to strike ; then took the king 
His three broad sons ; with now a wandering hand 
And now a pointed finger, told them all ; 260 

A common light of smiles at our disguise 
Broke from their lips, and ere the windy jest 
Had labored down within his ample lungs, 
The genial giant, Arac, rolled himself 
Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words. 2G5 

'Our land invaded, 'sdeath ! and he himself 
Your captive, yet my father wills not war; 
And 'sdeath ! myself, what care I, war or no? 
But then this question of your troth remains ; 
And there's a downright honest meaning in her ; 270 

She flies too high, she flies too high ! and yet 
She asked but space and fair-play for her scheme ; 
She pressed and pressed it on me — I myself. 
What know I of these thinsfs? but, life and soul ! 



'&' 



253. Bickers. — Flickers. Cf. Geraint and Enid. 

256. Wild beast of force. Cf. In Memoriam, CXVIII. 

259. Gama gesticulates like a true Southerner. 

262. Windy. — Wordy, costing much breath. 

266. 'Sdeath. — God's death. A Shakespearian oath. 

269. Your troth. — Does this refer to the plighted troth 
between the Prince and the Princess, or to Gama's promise 
to let her try her experiment? 



275 



28o 



CANTO vj A MEDLEY . 

163 

I thought her half-riglit talking of her wrono-s • 
1 say she fl.es too high; 'sdeath ! what of that? 
I take her for the flower of womankind. 
And so I often told her, right or wrong,' 
And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves 
And,, right or wrong, I care not ; this is all 
I stand upon her side; she made me swear it- 
Sdeath-and with solemn rites by candle-light- 
Swear by St. something-I forget her name- 
Her that talked down the fifty wisest men; 
She was a princess too; and so I swore 
Come, this is all ; she will not ; waive your claim • ' ' 
If not, the foughten field-what else?-at once 
Decides it, 'sdeath ! against my father's will/ 

I lagged in answer, loth to render up 
My precontract, and loth by brainless war 
To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet ; 
Till one of those two brothers, half aside ' 
And fingering at the hair about^his lip. 
To prick us on to combat 'Like to like ! 
The woman's garment hid the woman's heart.' 
A taunt that clenched his purpose like a blow ! 

275. Arac is much of the Prince's opinion 

^77- Cf. Prl. 48. 

283. St. SOMETHING.-Catherine of Alexandria 

287. Foughten FiELD.-Field of battle. Cf. Shakespeare's 
Henry V, IV. vi, 18; The Coming of Arthur, 134. 

293. This indicates his immature youth 

295. This insult rather than the merit of the cause is made 
the occasion of war. 



290 



295 



l64 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff, 
And sharp I answered, touched upon the point 
Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, 
'Decide it here : why not? we are three to three.' 300 

Then spake the third, 'But three to three? no more? 
No more, and in our noble sister's cause? 
More, more, for honor ; every captain waits 
Hungry for honor, angry for his king. 
More, more, some fifty on a side, that each 305 

May breathe himself, and quick ! by overthrow 
Of these or those, the question settled die.' 
*Yea,' answered I, 'for this wild wreath of air, 
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 
Foam of men's deeds, — this honor, if ye will. ^jq 

It needs must be for honor if at all ; 
Since, what decision? if we fail, we fail;, 
And if we wan, we fail ; she would not keep 
Her compact.' ' 'Sdeath ! but we v^ill send to her,' 
Said Arac, 'worthy reasons why she should 315 

Bide by this issue ; let our missive thro', 
And you shall have her answer by the word.' 

297. Cyril's hot-headedness had caused detection, and now 
it hurried on contention. 

298. Point. — That is, honor. For honor's sake thought- 
less men do acts of moral cowardice that bring them shame. 

308-309. Euphemistic description of so-called honor. Cf. 
Fal staff's description of 'honor' in Shakespeare's i Henry IV, 
V, i, 131 ff. 

312. Cf. 290 'brainless.' 

317. Cf. 361 ff. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 165 

'Boys !' shrieked tHe old king, but vainlier than a hen 
To her false daughters in the pool ; for none 
Regarded ; neither seemed there more to say ; 320 

Back rode we to my father's camp, and found 
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates, 
To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim, 
Or by denial flush her babbling wells 
With her own people's life; three tim(.\s he went ; 325 

The first he blew and blew, but none appeared ; 
He battered at the doors ; none came ; the next, 
An awful voice within had warned him thence ; 
The third, and those eight daughters of the plow 
Came sallying through the gates, and caught his hair, 330 
And so belabored him on rib and cheek 
They made him wild ; not less one glance he caught 
Thro' open doors of Ida stationed there 
Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 
Tho' compassed by two armies and the noise 335 

Of arms; and standing like a stately pine 
Set in a cataract on an island-crag, 
When storm is on the heights, and right and left. 
Sucked from the dark heart of the long hills, roll 

319. Ducklings. 

323. Cf. 286. The issue is joined. 

324. Cf I, 215. 

329. Cf IV, 259. The Princess' bodyguard. 
333. The answer to 323. 
336. Cf. IV, 472, and note. 

339. An interesting picture of a storm gathering in the 
hills and descending to the valley. Cf VII, 21. 



l66 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

The torrents, dashed to the vale ; and yet her will 3^0 

Bred will in me to overcome it or fall. 

But when I told the king that I was pledged 
To fight in tourney for my bride, he clashed 
His iron palms together with a cry ; 
Himself would tilt it out among the lads ; 345 

But overborne by all his bearded lords 
With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce 
He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur ; 
And many a bold knight started up in heat, 
And sware to combat for my claim till death. ^^q 

All on this side the palace ran the field 
Flat tt) the garden-wall ; and likewise here, 
Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, 
A columned entry shone, and marble stairs, 
And great bronze valves embossed with Tomyris 355 

And what she did to Cyrus after fight, 
But now fast barred ; so here upon the flat 
All that long morn the lists were hammered up, 
And all that morn the heralds to and fro, 
With message and defiance, went and came; ^60 

340. Cf. I, 47; VI, 102. 

343. Clashed.— Cf. 240, 172. 

351. It suggests the tourney field below Stirling Castle. 

355. Valves.— Gates. Cf. IV, 184. 

355. Tomyris.— The Queen who had the head of Cyrus 
the Great dipped in a 'skin filled with blood. Cf. Shakespeare, 
I Henry VI, II, iii, 5, 6. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 167 

Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand, 

But shaken here and there, and rolling words 

Oration-like. I kised it, and I read. 



*0 brother, you have known the pangs we felt, 
What heats of indignation, when we heard 365 

Of those that iron-cramped their women's feet; 
Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride 
Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge ; 
Of living hearts that crack within the fire 
Where smoulder their dead despots ; and of those, — ^lo 
Mothers, — that, all prophetic pity, fling 
Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops 
The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart 
Made for all noble motion ; and I saw 
That equal baseness lived in sleeker times 375 

With smoother men ; the old leaven leavened all ; 

361. Royal. — Does this refer to the handwriting? 

363. Cf. 317. 

364. Arac. 

364-379. This is Ida's arraignment of man and her defense 
of her cause. 

366. Chinese. 

367-368. Russia. 

369 ff. Hindoo. 

371. All prophetic pity. — Overwhelmed by pity in antici- 
pation of the fate of their daughters should they remain 
unmarried. 

375. Sleeker times. — That is, more polished times ; per- 
haps the nineteenth century. 

276. Old leaven. — Woman's inferiority. 



l68 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights, 

No woman named; therefore I set my face 

Against all men, and lived but for mine own. 

Far off from men I built a fold for them ; 380 

I stored it full of rich memorial ; 

I fenced it round with gallant institutes, 

And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey, 

And prospered ; till a rout of saucy beys 

Brake on us at our books, and marred our peace, 3S5 

Masked like our maids, blustermg I know not what 

Of insolence and love, some pretext held 

Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 

Sealed not the bond — the striplings! — for their 

sport ! — 
I tamed my leopards ; shall I not tame these ? 390 

Or you or I ? for since you think me touched 
In honor — what, I would not aught of false — 
Is not our cause pure? and whereas I know 
Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood 
You draw from, fight ; you failing, I abide 395 

What end soever ; fail you will not. Still, 

380. Note frequent reference to sheep. This suggests 
need of leadership. 

381. Statues of women, etc. 
383. Cf. II, 56-58. 

384.— Rout. — Company, etc. Cf. Prl. 148. 
388. Cf. I, S3, and note. 
390. Cf. II, IQ. 

392. To what does the Princess refer as false? 
394. It is evident that the Princess and her brother are 
the heirs of their mother. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 169 

Take not his life ; he risked it for my own ; 

His mother Hves ; yet whatsoe'er you do, 

Fight, and fight well ; strike and strike home. O dear 

Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you 400 

The sole men to be mingled with our cause, 

The sole men we shall prize in the aftertime, 

Your very armor hallowed, and your statues 

Reared, sung to, when, this gad-fly brushed aside, 

We plant a solid foot into the Time, 405 

And mold a generation strong to move 

With claim on claim from right to right, till she 

Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself; 

And Knowledge in our own land make her free, 

And, ever following those two crowned twins, 410 

Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain 

Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs 

Between the Northern and the Southern morn.' 

397. Cf. IV, 510, for her bitter gratitude. 

398. Lives.— Yet the tense in I, 11, and VII, 298, implies 
the contrary. Is the Princess mistaken ? 

400. The woman's Angel.— That is. the guardian angel of 
woman. 

401. Cf. II, 32- 

404. Gad-fly.— Pestiferous and transient interruption. 

406. How possible? Cf. II, 50; 164, etc. 

407. She. — Woman, the sex. 

409. Cf. John viii, 32. This is the motto of the University 
of Virginia, but Truth and Knowledge are not one. This is 
the Princess' mistake. 

411. A little bit of English life and ideal is obvious here. 
Fiery.— That is, inflaming, inciting, inspiring. 



170 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

Then came a postscript dashed across the rest : 
'See that there be no traitors in your camp; 415 

We seem a nest of traitors — none to trust 
Since our arms failed — this Egypt-plague of men ! 
Almost our maids were better at their homes, 
Than thus man-girdled here ; indeed, I think 
Our chiefest comfort is the little child 420 

Of one unworthy mother ; which she left ; 
She shall not have it back ; the child sliall grow 
To prize the authentic mother of her mind. 
I took it for an hour in mine own bed 
This morning; there the tender orphan hands 425 

Felt at my heart, and seemed to charm from thence 
The wrath I nursed against the world ; farewell.' 

I ceased ; he said, 'Stubborn, but she may sit 
Upon a king's right hand in thunderstorms, 

414. True to her womanly nature she puts her most im- 
portant declarations in a postscript, written, too, across the 
letter. 

417. Cf. Exodus viii-x. 

420. Child. — The true heroine of the poem, since all else 
bends to the power of the child. 

422. Cf. IV, 342, and note. 

423. Authentic mother of her mind, versus the mother 
of her body. Mental versus physical maternity; cf. Ill, 228. 

425-427. This is the dynamic point of the poem. Here 
Ida's nature changes, and from this time, when she bids 
farewell to her wrath against the world, she also welcomes 
manifestations of love for herself. 

428. He. — The Prince's father, who had listened to the 
letter read aloud. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY, 171 

And breed up warriors ! See now — tho' yourself 430 
Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs 
That swallow common sense — the spindling king, 
This Gama, swamped in lazy tolerance. 
When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up, 
And topples down the scales ; but this is fixed 435 

As are the roots of earth and base of all : 
Man for the field and woman for the hearth ; 
Man for the sword and for the needle she ; 
Man with the head and woman with the heart; 
Man to command and woman to obey ; ^o 

All else confusion. Look you ! the gray n:kare 
Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills 
From tile to scullery, and her small goodman 
Shrinks in his arm-chair, while the fires of hell 
Mix with his hearth ; but you — she's yet a colt — 445 
Take, break her; strongly groomed and straitly 
curbed, 

431. Cf. IV, 338. Is this his father's explanation of the 
weird seizures? 

433. Gama is no master in his own household. He is 
overpowered by his own children. 

434 ff. The king's opinion of woman is that .of the typical 
Englishman. 453-454. The old king's solution of the prob- 
lem is direct and matter of fact, but it has many advocates. 
Cf. VII, 248. and In Memoriam, XL, 4. 

440. Cf. Genesis iii, 16; Ephesians v, 12; Shakespeare's 
Troilus and Cressida, I, iii, 85 ff; Milton's Paradise Lost, 
IV, 440 ff. 

441. Gray mare.— Cf. the proverb: 'The gray mare li 
the better horse." 

443. Goodman. — Husband, but used in disparagement. 



172 THE PklNcSSS: [canto v 

She might not rank with those detestable 

That let the bantHng scald at home, and brawl 

Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street. 

They say she's comely ; there's the fairer chance ; 450 

/ like her none the less for rating at her ! 

Besides, the woman wed is not as we, 

But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace 

Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, 

The bearing and the training of a child 455 

Is woman's wisdom.' 

Thus the hard old king. 
I took my leave, for it was nearly noon ; 
I pored upon her letter which I held, 
And on the little clause, 'Take not his life;* 
I mused on that wild morning in the woods, 460 

And on the 'Follow, follow, thou shalt win ;' 
I thought on all the wrathful king had said, 
And how the strange betrothment was to end; 
Then I remembered that burnt sorcerer's curse 
That one should fight with shadows and should fall, 465 
And like a flash the weird affection came: 
King, camp, and college turned to hollow shows; 
I seemed to move in old memorial tilts, 

447. Detestable. — Mothers is understood. 
449. Cf. the street-cries of vegetable venders. 

^ 460. Cf. 397. 

461-462. Cf. I, 89-99. Cf. Follow the Gleam, 

464. Cf. I, 5. 

466. Cf. Ill, 167, etc. 

469. Cf. I, 17; IV, 539. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 173 

And doing battle with forgotten ghosts, 

To dream myself the shadow of a dream; 470 

And ere I woke it was the point of noon ; 

The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed 

We entered in, and waited, fifty there 

Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared 

At the barrier like a wild horn in a land 475 

Of echoes, and a moment, and once more 

The trumpet, and again ; at which the storm 

Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 

And riders front to front, until they closed 

In conflict, with the crash of shivering points, 480 

And thunder. Yet it seemed a dream I dreamed 

Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed. 

And into fiery splinters leapt the lance. 

And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 

Part sat like rocks ; part reeled, but kept their seats; 485 

Part rolled on the earth, and rose again, and drew ; 

Part stumbled, mixed with floundering horses. Down 

From those two bulks at Arac's side, and down 

From Arac's arm as from a giant's flail. 

The large blows rained, as here and everywhere 490 

470. Cf. Prl. 222; I, 18; III, 172. 
,472. Lists.— Cf. 358. 

473. Fifty.— Cf. 305- 

474. This description of a tourney is splendid in fire, vivid- 
ness, and rapidity of movement. 

475. Cf. Alpine Horn ; cf. also hints to the Bugle Song. 
478. Bare . . . on.— Advanced, carried forward. 
481. The Prince confuses even truth and dreams. Is he 

still in a trance? 



495 



500 



174 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing Hsts, 

And all the plain, — brand, mace, and shaft, and 

shield — 
Shocked, like an iron-clanging anvil banged 
With hammers; till I thought, 'Can this be he 
From Gama's dwarfish loins? if this be so, 
The mother makes us most' — and in my dream 
I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front 
Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes. 
And highest, among the statues, statue-like. 
Between a cymbaled Miriam and a Jael, 
With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 
A single band of gold about her hair, 
Like a Saint's glory up in heaven ; but she 
No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — 
Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight, 505 

Yea, let her see me fall ! With that I drave 
Among the thickest and bore down a Prince, 
And Cyril one. Yea, let me make my dream 
All that I would. But that large-molded man, 



491. — Mellay.— Melee. 
493. Note the metrical and verbal effect. 
496. The accepted view of cross inheritance. 
500. — Cf. Exodus XV, 20; Judges iv, 17, 
503. Saint's glory.— Halo. Cf. the golden fillet often 
worn by Greeks. 

505. Note change of tense for vivid realism of her pres- 
ence as a witness. 

506. Drave. — This form is archaic. 

507-508. Arac's brothers are thus disposed of. 



CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 175 

His visage all agrin as at a wake, 510 

Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back 

With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came 

As comes a pillar of electric cloud, 

Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains, 

And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes 515 

On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and 

splits. 
And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth 
Reels, and the herdsmen cry ; for everything 
Gave way before him ; only Florian, he 
That loved me closer than his own right eye, 52a 

Thrust in between ; but Arac rode him down ; 
And Cyril, seeing it, pushed against the Prince, 
With Psyche's color round his helmet ; tough, 
Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms ; 
But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 525 

And threw him ; last I spurred ; I felt my veins 
Stretch with fierce heat ; a moment hand to hand, 
And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung, 

510. This suggestion of mirth in the presence of death is 
of a piece with the medley nature of this fight, but it is also 
in keeping with Arac's character. Cf. 264. 

511. Staggering is an active verb. 

513. This is a vivid picture of a cyclone. ColHns calls at- 
tention to Lucan's similar description, Pharsalia, I, 152-158. 
Where, from books or experience, did Tennyson get these 
details? 

520. Cf. I, 54-55. Cf. Galatians iv, 13. 

523. Cf. Interlude, 18 ff. 



1^6 THE PRINCESS: [canto v 

Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanced, 

I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth 530 

Flowed from me ; darkness closed me ; and I fell. 

531. His seizures (mental) and his half-dream, half-truth 
state now gave way to imconsciousness caused by a wound 
as of death. Cf. VI, 10, 92, etc. 



[CONSOLATION.] 

Home they brought her warrior dead ; 

She nor swooned, nor uttered cry ; 
All her maidens, watching, said, 

' She must weep or she will die.' 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 
Called him worthy to be loved, 

Truest friend and noblest foe ; 
Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 

Stole a maiden from her place, 
Lightly to the warrior stepped, 

Took the face-cloth from the face; 
Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
Set his child upon her knee ; 

Like summer tempest came her tears — 
* Sweet my child, I live for thee.' 



In this poem the wean nerves the widow after the war- 
rior's death. (Cf. Poem, p. 147.) Here is the baby's magic in 
consolation. The poem follows immediately upon the 
Prince's supposed death wound. The warrior has fallen, and 
widowed Ida has already been softened by the warmth of 
Psyche's child. The verses are not descriptive of Canto V, 
but suggest several of its scenes. Cf. 50, 58, T], 79, 531 ; VI, 
177. 

This elegy is very simple in form, but none the less effec- 
tive in its dynamic climax. The sources are perhaps First 
Lay of Gudrun; The Lay of the Last Minstrel (I, 9) ; Dar- 
win's Loves of the Plants, III, 269-326. 

[ 177 ] 



lyS THE PRINCESS: [canto vi 



VI. 



[TRIUMPH AND FORGIVENESS.] 

[Ida exults over lier fallen enemies and ruslies to the field 
to tender her services as nurse to those who have championed 
her cause. She finds the Prince apparently dead, but when 
she knows him alive begs to be suffered to nurse him too. 
This request is refused when she seems so hard to Psyche, 
but, after their reconciliation, is granted and the doors of the 
Academe are thrown wide to receive all the wounded. — Ed.] 

My dream had never died, or lived again. 
As in some mystic middle state I lay ; 
Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard ; 
Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all 
So often that I speak as having seen. 

For so it seemed, or so they said to me, 
That all things grew more tragic and more strange; 

2. Another member of the seven takes up the tale, but in 
the character of the Prince. The new narrator must explain 
his knowledge of what happened during this unconscious 
state. This he does as follows: The Prince falls wounded 
and unconscious, yet he tells what happens immediately after 
his fall and later. His ability to do this is due to the fact 
(i) that his dream (Canto V.) had never ceased; or (2) 
that his dream at once revived (began again) ; or (3) that 
he lay in some middle state; or (4) that he is telling what 
he had heard so often that he seemed to recollect it himself. 



CANTO vi] A MEDLEY. 179 

That when our side was vanquished, and my cause 

For ever lost there went up a great cry, 

'The Prince is slain!' My father heard, and ran ^^ 

In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque 

And groveled on my body, and after him 

Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. 

But high upon the palace Ida stood 
With Psyche's babe in arm ; there on the roofs '5 

Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. 

' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen ; the seed, 
The little seed they laughed at in the dark, 
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side ^^ 

A thousand arms, and rushes to the sun. 

12. Groveled. — Is this a felicitous word? 

13. Psyche's cause was bound up with the Prince's, hence 
she thinks Aglaia permanently lost. Cf. V, loi, 103. 

15. Babe in arm. — Cf. Palace of Art. What is the usual 
expression? 

16. Cf. Deborah; Judges iv, 4; V, 1. ff . ; cf. IV, 121; V, 
500. 

17-42. Ida's Exultation — Plot Song IV — This Song of 
Triumph, a Valkyrian hymn into which Ida dashes the 
passion of the prophetess (cf. IV, 121, 122), is in her 
original manner before the wrath she nursed against the 
world had been charmed from her breast. (Cf. V, 425, 
426.) This return to her fiery mood is natural under the ex- 
citement of battle, but almost immediately (cf. 56) her new- 
found tenderness reasserts itself. 

This poem. Cook suggests, makes use of Psalm, xcii; 
Hosea, xiv ;. Psalm, Ixxx, and Jeremiah, xlvi. For a similar 



l8o THE PRINCESS: [canto vi 

'Our enemies have fallen, have fallen; they came; 
The leaves were wet with women's tears; they heard 
A noise of songs they would not understand; 
They marked it with the red cross to the fall, 25 

And would have strown it, and are fallen themselves. 

' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen; they came, 
The woodmen with their axes: "lo the tree! 
But we will make it faggots for the hearth, 
And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, 30 

And boats and bridges for the use of men." 

' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen ; they struck ; 
With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew 
There dwelt an iron nature in the grain; 
The glittering axe was broken in their arms, 35 

Their arms were shattered to the shoulder blade. 

' Our enemies have fallen, but this shall grow 
A night of Summer from the heat, a breath 
Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power; and rolled 

figure compare Shakespeare's Henry VIII, V, v, 53, 56. The 
main hint is, however, found in Deborah's song in Judges, v. 
It is a rhymeless, rhapsodical war lyric of exultation, but it 
is at the same time an allegorical picture, present and pro- 
phetic, of woman's cause. 

21. To THE SUN. — This is a phrase of direction and height. 

25. Red cross. — The master woodman's sign for the tree's 
destruction. 

34. Truly said of Ida and her womanly type, truly said 
too of the inherent nature of her cause. 

36. Cf. Job, xxxi, 22. 

38. A NIGHT OF SUMMER FROM THE HEAT. — Protected from 
the heat throughout a summer night. Does this mean in ob- 
scurity, unobserved ? 

39. Autumn. — The ripening time (of her cause). 



45 



5o 



CANTO vi] A MEDLEY. jgj 

With music in the growing breeze of Time, .q 

The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
Shall move the stony bases of the world.' 

'And now, O maids, behold our sanctuary 
Is violate, our laws broken ; fear we not 
To break them more, in their behoof whose arms 
Championed our cause and won it with a day 
Blanched in our annals, and perpetual feast, 
When dames and heroines of the golden year 
Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, 
To rain an April of ovation round 
Their statues, borne aloft, the three ; but come. 
We will be liberal, since our rights are won. 
Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, 
111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 

40. Time.— Cf. II, 356; IV, 496; VII, 90, 271. 

41. FA-NGS.~The stem suggests seizing, grasping. Here 
it is the clutching roots of this symbolic tree. 

42. Cf. In Memoriam, II. 

47. Blanched.— Variant for whitened, meaning made gra- 
cious or auspicious. Cf. "white," in Century Dictionary. 
Cf. the expression, a "red-letter day." 

48. Cf. The Golden Year. 
50. April is the rainy month. *To rain an April" Is a 

figure of intensity. 

52. Won, but lost in the winning, for Love against whom 
enmity was sworn is by this liberality 'made Victor ' Cf V 
395; VII, 5 ff. ■ ' 

53- Mankind.— Of the kind like man ; that is, of mascu- 
line sex and nature. Cf. Shakespeare's Timon of Athens IV, 
III, 490, 491. 

54. III.— Cf. V, 90. 



l82 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi 

The brethren of our blood and cause, that there 55 

Lie bruised and maimed, the tender ministries 
Of female hands and hospitality.' 

She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms, 
Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led 
A hundred maids in train across the park. 6c 

Some cowled, and some bare-headed, on they came, 
Their feet in flowers, her loveliest ; by them went 
The enamored air sighing, and on their curls 
From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, 
And over them the tremulous isles of light 65 

Slided, they moving under shade; but Blanche 
At distance followed ; so they came; anon 
Thro' open field into the lists they wound 
Timorously ; and as the leader of the herd 
That holds a stately fretwork to^ the sun, 70 

And followed up by a hundred airy does. 
Steps with a tender foot, light as on air, 

58. Cf. 15. 

59. Cf. V, 355. 

61. Cowled. — With heads covered. No suggestion here 
of their office as Sisters of Mercy. 

65. Cf. In Memoriam, XXIV, LXXXIX; CEnone, 176-8. 
This is a favorite figure with Tennyson, who says: "They 
are 'isles of light, spots of sunshine coming through the 
leaves, and seeming to slide from one to the other as the pro- 
cession of girls moves under shade.' " — Letter to Dawson. 
Does tremulous suggest merely motion or also apprehension? 

66. Blanche.— Cf. IV, 341. 

69-70. This masculine figure brings out the force and 
virility of Ida as opposed to the others of her fold. Cf. V, 
380. 



CANTO vi] A MEDLEY. 183 

The lovely, lordly creature floated on 
To where her wounded brethren lay ; there stayed ; 
Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — and pressed 75 
Their hands, and called them dear deliverers, 
And happy warriors, and immortal names ; 
And said, 'You shall not lie in the tents, but here, 
And nursed by those for whom you fought and served 
With female hands and hospitality.' 80 

Then, whether moved by this — or was it chance? — 
She passed my way. Up started from my side 
The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye. 
Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, 
Dishelmed and mute, and motionlessly pale, 85 

Cold even to her, she sighed ; and when she saw 
The haggard father's face and reverend beard 
Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood 
Of his own son, shuddered, a twitch of pain 
Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead passed 90 
A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said : 
'He saved my life ; my brother slew him for it.' 

yS' Floated. — This is Ida's gait. IV, 505. It was also 
Dalila's in Samson Agonistes, 1072. 

80. Repeated from 57. 

81. Give your answer to the question. 

83. The Prince, then, was his father's only child? The 
expression is not happy. 

84. Stark. — Stiff (in death). 

86. Cold even to her. — Her supreme test of his life. 

88. Grisly twine. — Coarse, greyish thread. 

89. The Princess relenting. 

92. This seems to border on remorse. Cf. V, 397. 



l84 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi 

No more; at which the king in bitter scorn 

Drew from my neck the painting- and the tress, 

And held them up; she saw them, and a day 95 

Rose from the distance on her memory. 

When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress 

With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche ; 

And then once more she looked at my pale face ; 

Till, understanding all the foolish work loo 

Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all, 

Her iron will was broken in her mind ; 

Her noble heart was molten in her breast ; 

She bowed, she set the child on the earth ; she laid 

A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 105 

*0 Sire,' she said, 'he lives; he is not dead; 

O let me have him with my brethren here 

In our own palace; we will tend on him 

Like one of these; if so, by any means, 

To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make no 

Our progress falter to the woman's goal/ 

94. Cf. I, 37, 39. 

97. The Princess' mother, then, favored the Prince's suit. 
Cf. V, 530. 

98. Cf. 222. 

loi. Fancy. — Her chimerical scheme. 

102. Iron will. — II, 185 ; V, 340. This Is a dynamic point 
in the poem. 

106. This touch that calls to life prefigures another touch 
(VII, 143) that brings a new life to Ida. Cf. also Inter- 
calary Poem, VI, 3, 4; p. 199. 

no. Gratitude was bitter (IV, 510), now it is burdensome. 

III. Make . . . falter. — Impedes. 



CANTO vi] A MEDLEY. 185 

She said ; but at the happy word 'He lives/ 
My father stooped, re-fathered o'er my wounds. 
So those two foes, above my fallen life, 
With brow to brow like night and evening, mixed 115 
Their dark and gray ; while Psyche ever stole 
A little nearer, till the babe that by us, 
Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede. 
Lay like a new-fallen meteor on the grass, 
Uncared for, spied its mother, and began 120 

A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms 
And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal 
Brooked not, but clamoring out, 'Mine — mine — not 

yours, 
It is not yours, but mine ; give me the child !' 125 

Ceased all on tremble ; piteous was the cry ; 
So stood the unhappy mother open-mouthed. 
And turned each face her way ; wan was her cheek 
With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn. 
Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye, 130 

And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and half 

118. Brede. — Embroidery. 

119. Cf. IV, 267. 

121. Blind. — What does this signify? 

122. Fatling.— Diminutive, small and fat. As an adjec- 
tive this seems to be a Tennysonian coinage, (See Century 
Dictionary.) 

124. Brooked not. — That is, conld not withstand. 
126. On tremble. — Equal to a-tremble. Cf. on sleep, 
asleep. Cf. 348 and Acts, xiii, 36. 

129. Hollow. — Belongs to cheek, as 'red' in 130, to eye. 



l86 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi 

The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst 

The laces toward her babe ; but she nor cared 

Nor knew it, clamoring on, till Ida heard, 

Looked up, and rising slowly from me, stood 135 

Erect and silent, striking with her glance 

The mother, me, the child ; but he that lay 

Beside us, Cyril, battered as he was, 

Trailed himself up on one knee ; then he drew 

Her robe to meet his lips, and down she looked 140 

At the armed man sideways, pitying, as it seemed. 

Or self-involved ; but when she learnt his face, 

Remembering his ill-omened song, arose 

Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him grew 

Tall as a figure lengthened on the sand 145 

When the tide ebbs in sunshine ; and he said : 

'O fair and strong and terrible! Lioness 
That with your long locks play the Lion's mane ! — • 
But Love and Nature, these are two more terrible 
And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks, 150 

We vanquished, you the Victor of your will. 

142. Self- INVOLVED. — That is, self-absorbed. 

143. Cf. IV, 139- 

144. Her height.— Cf. II, 27; V, 245, 264, 488, 509- Cf. 
also Prl. 218. What is the Prince's height? See II, 33. This 
is the last reference to the manly height of the Princess. 
Hereafter she is drawn with emphasis on her womanly attri- 
butes. 

149-150. This is the key to the poem. Love and Nature 
will ever triumph over Knowledge, Power, Will, Whimsical 
Plan. etc. 

151. Of. — That is, in accordance with, etc. 



CANTO VI] A MEDLEY. 187 

What would you more ? Give her the child ! remain 

Orbed in your isolation ; he is dead, 

Or all as dead ; henceforth we let you be ; 

Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 155 

Lest, where you seek the common love of these. 

The common hate with the revolving wheel 

Should drag you down, and some great Nemesis 

Break from a darkened future, crowned with fire, 

And tread you out for ever ; but howsoe'er 160 

Fixed in yourself, never in your own arms 

To hold your own, deny not hers to her ; 

Give her the child ! O if, I say, you keep 

One pulse that beats true woman, if you loved 

The breast that fed or arm that dandled you, J55 

Or own one port of sense not flint to prayer, 

Give her the child ! or if you scorn to lay it. 

Yourself, in hands so lately clasped with yours. 

Or speak to her, your dearest — her one fault 

The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill — lyo 

Give me it : / will give it her/ 

153. Orbed.— Cf. 'sphered,' etc., IV, 129, 130. 

157. Discontent was observed before. Cf. II, 439. 

158. Nemesis. — Goddess of Retribution. 
161. Cf. Ida's lament, III, 230 ff. 

165. Cf. V, 394. 

166. Port. — Porta — gate, opening, avenue. Cf. Shakes- 
peare's II. Henry IV, IV, v^ 2;^, 24, etc. 

169. Cf. 232 ff. 

171. This intercession on the part of Cyril is perhaps not 
entirely unselfish. He, no doubt, remembers her promise of 
reward (V, loi). 



l88 THE PRINCESS: (canto vl 

He said ; 
At first her eye with slow dilation rolled 
Dry flame, she listening; after sank and sank, 
And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt 
Full on the child ; she took it: 'Pretty bud! 175 

Lily of the vale! half opened bell of the woods! 
Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
Of traitorous friend and broken system made 
No purple in the distance, mystery, — 
Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell ; jSo 

These men are hard upon us as of old. 
We two must part ; and yet how fain was I 
To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think 
I might be something to thee, when I felt 
Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast ^ ^g 

In the dead prime! but may thy mother prove 
As true to thee as false, false, false to me! 



175. Cf. V, 97. 
177. Cf. IV. 343 ff. 

179. Purple in the distance.— /n Memoriam, XXXI, 
3; XXXVIII, I. 'Prospect and horizon.* 

180. Wedded love. 

183. The woman's cause embraces the child's, therefore 
no solution of the woman problem is final that does not take 
account of children. This is distinctly Tennyson's view. 

185. Cf. V, 424. 

186. Dead prime. — Cf. II, 106; In Memoriam, XLIII, 4. 
Perhaps this refers, first to the hour before dawn when vital- 
ity is low (cf. V, 425) ; but its further reference is to the un- 
fruitful spring of life. 

187. Isn't the accusation too absolute? 



CANTO VI] A MEDLEY. 189 

And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it 

Gentle as freedom' — here she kissed it ; then — 

'All good go with thee! take it, Sir,' and so 190 

Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands, 

Who turned half-round to Psyche, as she sprang 

To meet it with an eye that swum in thanks; 

Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot, 

And hugged and never hugged it close enough, 1^5 

And in her hunger mouthed and mumbled it. 

And hid her bosom with it ; after that 

Put on more calm, and added suppliantly : 

'We two were friends : I go to mine own land 
For ever ; find some other ; as for me, 200 

I scarce am fit for your great plans ; yet speak to me ; 
Say one soft word and let me part forgiven.' 

'But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. 
Then Arac : 'Ida — 'sdeath ! you blame the man ; 
You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard 205 

Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me ! 
I am your w^arrior ; I and mine have fought 
Your battle ; kiss her ; take her hand, she weeps ; 
'Sdeath ! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see it.' 

201. Because of too much heart. 

205. Cf. 'Man's inhumanity to man,' Burns' Man Was 
Made to Mourn, 7, as the generic expression. 

206. Grace. — Favor. 

209. Arac's heart is more tender than Ida's, because Hq 
has not learned to be unnatural, 



190 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi 

But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground ; 
And reddening in the furrows of his chin, 
And moved beyond his custom, Gama said: 



'I've heard that there is iron in the blood, 
And I beheve it. Not one word ? not one ? 
Whence drew you this steel temper? not from me, 215 
Not from your mother, now a saint with saints. 
She said you had a heart — I heard her say it — 
"Our Ida has a heart — " just ere she died — 
"But see that some one with autliority 
Be near her stiU ;" and I — I sought for one — 220 

All people said she had authority — 
The Lady Blanche ; much profit ! Not one word ; 
No ! tho' your father sues ; see how you stand 
Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights maimed, 
I trust that there is no one hurt to death, 225 

For your wild whim; and was it then for this, 
Was it for this we gave our palace up, 
Where we withdrew from sunmier heats and state, 
And had our wine and chess beneath the planes. 
And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, 230 



213. Cf. 34- 

215. The IRON and steel indicate the metallic hardness of 
Ida's acquired nature. 

218-19. Ida's mother did not, as so many others, misjudge 
her. 

224. Cf. Genesis, xi.x, 26. 

22-]. Cf. I, 145- 

229. Planes. — Cf. Ill, 159. 



CANTO VI] A MEDLEY. jqi 

Ere you were born to vex us ? Is it kind ? 

Speak to her, I say ; is this not she of whom, 

When first she came, all flushed you said to me 

Now had you got a friend of your own age, 

Now could you share your thought ; now should men 

see 235 

Two women faster welded in one love 
Than pairs of wedlock ; she you walked wdth, she 
You talked with, whole nights long, up in the tower, 
Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth. 
And right ascension, Heaven knows what; and now 240 
A word, but one, one little kindly word, 
Not one to spare her ? out upon you, flint ! 
You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; nay, 
You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one? 
You will not? well — no heart have you, or such 245 

As fancies, like the vermin in a nut, 
Have fretted all to d.ust and bitterness.' 
So said the small king, moved beyond his wont. 

But Ida stood, nor spoke, drained of her force 
By many a varying influence and so long. 250 

Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor wept ; 

231. Was Ida always a self-willed, troublesome child? 

234. Less than twenty. Cf. II, 92, 93. 

238-240. This is a reminder of Milton's // Pcnscroso, 85 
ff. These are technical astronomical terms. 

245-246. Cf. 218. 

247. Fretted. — Gnawed. Cf. A Dirge, g, 10. 

251. There is weeping in her manner, though not in her 
eyes. 



192 THE PRINCESS; [canto vi 

Her head a little bent ; and on her mouth 

A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 

In a still water ; then brake out my sire, 

Lifting his grim head from my wounds: 'O you, 255 

Woman, whom we thought woman even now, 

And were half fooled to let you tend our son, 

Because he might have wished it — but we see 

The accomplice of your madness unforgiven, 

And think that you might mix his draught with death, 260 

When your skies change again ; the rougher hand 

Is safer ; on to the tents ; take up the Prince.' 

He rose, and while each ear was pricked to attend 
A tempest, thro' the cloud that dimmed her broke 
A genial warmth and light once more, and shone 265 

Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. 

'Come hither, 
O Psyche,' she cried out, 'embrace me, come, 
jQuick while I melt ; make reconcilement sure 
With one that cannot keep her mind an hour; 
Come to the hollow heart they slander so ! 
Kiss and be friends, like children being chid ! 



270 



256. Cf. 115. 

261. The old King charges her with fickleness. Cf. 269. 

266. Cf. 251. 

269. The charge of 261 confessed. 

270. Hollow.— Empty because lacking in weddeddove, 
child-love, and friend -love; or does she mean they slander 
her heart by calling it hollow; that is, without natural feel- 
ing? See 245, 



CANTO vij A MEDLEY. 1^3 

/ seem no more ; / want forgiveness too ; 

I should have had to do with none but maids, 

That have no hnks with men. Ah, false but dear, 

Dear traitor, too much loved, why? — why? — Yet see, 275 

Before these kings we embrace you yet once more 

With all forgiveness, all oblivion. 

And trust, not love, you less. 

And now, O Sire, 
Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him, 
Like mine own brother. For my debt to him, 280 

This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it; 
Taunt me no more ; yourself and yours shall have 
Free adit ; we will scatter all our maids 
Till happier times each to her proper hearth ; 

272. The Obvious interpretation of this line is : / seein 
no more than a child, and, child-like, I want forgiveness ; but 
there are two other interpretations worth considering: (i) 
I seem no more ; that is, I no longer pretend to be your 
enemy and to believe you false. I want your forgiveness 
for my seeming hardness and injustice. (2) I seem no 
more ; that is, I am done with these unreal and chimerical 
fancies, these fine-spun theories with their inherent unnatu- 
ralness, and for my vagary, which I here renounce, I want 
forgiveness too. 

278. Cf. 262 and 267. And now (causal, not temporal) 
that I have shown my forgiving spirit, grant me your son. 
The moving cause of her reconciliation with Psyche is inter- 
est in the Prince. 

279. Ida is not usually suppliant. 
281. Cf. no. 

283. Adit. — Access. Cf. 'port,' 166. 

284. Proper. — Cf. In Memoriam, XXVI, 4. "But they did 



194 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi 

What use to keep them here — now ? grant my prayer. 285 

Help, father, brother, help; speak to the king; 

Thaw this male nature to some touch of that 

Which kills me with myself, and drags me down 

From my fixed height to mob me up with all 

The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 290 

Poor weakling even as they are.' 

Passionate tears 
Followed ; the king replied not ; Cyril said : 
'Your brother, Lady, — Florian, — ask for him 
Of your great Head — for he is wounded too — 
That you may tend upon him with the Prince.' 295 

*Ay so,' said Ida with a bitter smile, 
'Our laws are broken ; let him enter too.' 
Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song. 
And had a cousin tumbled on the plain. 
Petitioned too for him. 'Ay so,' she said, 300 

T stagger in the stream ; I cannot keep 
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour; 
We break our laws with ease, but let it be.' 

not all go (VII, 5, etc.), because they had found a more sat- 
isfactory mission. Cf. 360. 

287. That. — Namely, womanly nature. Is this the re- 
nunciation of her plan suggested, perhaps, in 2']2'^. 

289. "Clash ... in one." — Cf. V, 172. 

290. Milky. — Not only white, but weak and effeminate. 
Cf. Shelley's Ccnci II, i ; Shakespeare's Timon of Athens 

in. i, 57. 

291. Cf. with 251 and 266 for progression in tenderness. 
298. Cf. IV, 19. 

302. Contrast V, 336. 



CANTO VI] A MEDLEY. jge 

'Ay so?' said Blanche: 'Amazed am I to hear 

Your Highness; but Your Highness breaks with ease 305 

The law Your Highness did not make; 'twas I. 

I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, 

And blocked them out ; but these men came to \voo 

Your Highness— veril)/ I think to win.' 



So she, and turned askance a wintry eye; 
But Ida, with a voice that like a bell 
Tolled by an earthquake in a trembling tower, 
Rang ruin, answered full of grief and scorn. 

'Fling our doors wide ! all, all, not one, but all ; 
Not only he, but by my mother's soul, 
Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, 
Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit. 
Till the storm die ! but had you stood by us, 

307. But unhappily married ("wedded to a fool," III, 67), 
therefore she did not know fairly the sex. 

309. Blanche's judgment is better far than her heart. 

310. Wintry.— Cold, unsympathetic. 

311. Whence this picture? There echoes through all the 
remainder of the poem this bell like announcement of the 
downfall of her large but wrongly- designed plan. 

314. Blanche was singularly fatal in drivmg the Princess 
to prompt and far-reachmg decisions. Cf. IV, 343, etc. Is 
this mere femmine perversity, or does Ida, with woman's 
intuition, know Blanche wrong, and therefore, whatever she 
opposes, right? 

318. Psyche had compromised with her duty because of 
love for her brother, though she perhaps had Cyril in mind ; 
Blanche had faltered in her duty because of ambition, though 



310 



.315 



196 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi 

The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base 

Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too, 320 

But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes. 

We brook no further insult, but are gone.' 

She turned ; the very nape of her white neck 
Was rosed with indignation ; but the Prince 
Her brother came ; the king her father charmed 325 

Her wounded soul with words; nor did mine own 
Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. 

Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare 
Straight to the doors ; to them the doors gave way 
Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shrieked 330 

The virgin marble under iron heels ; 
And on they moved and gained the hall, and there 
Rested ; but great the crush was, and each base, 

she claims that it was because of her fear of being misunder- 
stood ; and now Ida, who is overcome by love, would per- 
suade herself that she is the victim of treachery. 

319. Pharos. — Lighthouse. Cf. 312. 

321. Likes. — Cf. this dismissal with IV, 343. 

In the first two editions there follows a number of lines, 
including these : 

' Go, help the half-brained dwarf Society, 
To find low motives unto noble deeds. 
To fix all doubt upon the darker side.' 

330-331. Is this what Ruskin calls the 'pathetic fallacy,' 
and in this case is it justifiable? Ruskin's Modern Paint- 
ers, III. 

232. Hall.— Cf. II, 17. 61, 416; IV, 253, 456. 



CANTO vi] A MEDLEY. I97 

To left and right, of those tall columns, drowned 

In silken fluctuation and the swarm 335 

Of female whisperers ; at the further end 

Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats 

Close by her, like supporters on a shield, 

Bow-backed with fear ; but in the centre stood 

The common men with rolling eyes; amazed 340 

They glared upon the women, and aghast 

The women stared at these, all silent, save 

When armor clashed or jingled; while the day, 

Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot 

A flying splendor out of brass and steel, .^^ 

That o'er the statues leapt from head to head, 

Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm. 

Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame ; 

And now and then an echo started up, 

And shuddering fled from room to room, and died 350 

Of fright in far apartments. 

Then the voice 
Of Ida sounded issuing ordinance ; 

334. Those tall columns. — Cf. II, 412. 

335. Fluctuation. — Waves, folds, etc. 

ZZ7- Two GREAT CATS.— Cf. II, ij \ III, i6s, 170. 

344. Cf. II, 449- 

347-348. Angry Pallas and wrathful Dian. — The nar- 
rator attributes emotion to these deities who find their pre- 
cincts invaded. Cf. I, 219. 

352. Ordinance. — Orders, decree. Cf. Tennyson To 
J. S. 

' God's ordinance 
Of death is blown in every wind.' 



198 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi 

And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' 

The long-laid galleries, past a hundred doors, 

To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 355 

To languid limbs and sickness; left me in it; 

And others otherwhere they laid ; and all 

That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 

And chariot, many a maiden passing home 

Till happier times; but some were left of those 360 

Held sagest ; and the great lords out and in, 

From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, 

Walked at their will ; and everything was changed. 

355. Due. — Owed, suited. 
359. Cf. 284 and 317. 

361. Sagest. — Wisest and most prudent, but cf. VII, 
69 ff. 



[RELUCTANT SURRENDER.] 

Ask me no more; the moon may draw the sea; 

The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; 

But O too fond, when have I answered thee? 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me ,no more; what answer should I give? 

I love not hollow cheek or faded eye; 

Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! 
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more; thy fate and mine are sealed; 

I strove against the stream, and all in vain; 
Let the great river take me to the main ; 
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; 
Ask me no more. 



Tennyson's skill in drawing matchless music out of mono- 
syllables is nowhere better illustrated than in this splendid 
song. The metrical scheme, the rhyme order, and the re- 
frain are all exceedingly artistic. But the poem's higher art- 
value is in its beautiful unfolding of Ida's love story. In 
the first stanza is recognized the law that — 

' Nothing in the world is single; 
All things by a law divine 
In one another's being mingle.' 

— Shelley^ '•Lovers Philosophy,^ 

But while this union is obvious, she would not be pressed 
to an answer. She cannot love one in desperate sickness, so 
her thoughts run, yet something like love yearns to save his 
life. But there is no running counter to the fates; as well 
strive against the stream. (Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis.) 
Therefore she yields herself to the large unfolding love. Cf. 
VII, 345. 

[ 199 ] 



20O THE PRINCESS: [canto vii 



VII. 



[THE CARNIVAL OF LOVE.] 

[The violated sanctuary is now a hospital, and the maidens 
nurses. A sad happiness in these ministries of love prevails. 
Florian and Melissa are united in heart and work. Psyche 
yields her love to Cyril when Ida's silence gives consent, and 
Ida nurses the Prince. Through interest and tenderness she 
learns to love. There follows a noble wooing, which finds its 
reward in her confident trust. — Ed.] 

So was their sanctuary violated, 

So their fair college turned to hospital; 

At first with all confusion ; by and by 

Sweet order lived again, with other laws; 

A kindlier influence reigned ; and everywhere 

Low voices, with the ministering hand, 

Hung round the sick ; the maidens came, they talked, 

They sang, they read ; till she not fair began 

To gather light, and she that was, became 

Her former beauty treble ; and to and fro 

I. Cf. VI, 43. 

4. Order lived again. — (i) The order of law; then (2) 
confusion of readjustment to new conditions; and (3) the 
order of love, the true fulfilling of law. 

6. Low. — Cf. Shakespeare's King Lear, V, iii, 273-4. 

8-10. A pleasing poetic illustration of the homely pro- 
verb : "Pretty is as pretty does." 



15 



CANTO vii] A MEDLEY. 201 

With books, with flowers, with angel offices, 
Like creatures native unto gracious act, 
And in their own clear element, they moved. 

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, 
And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. 
Old studies failed ; seldom she spoke ; but oft 
Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours 
On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men 
Darkening her female field ; void was her use, 
And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 20 

O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night. 
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, 
And suck the blinding splendor from the sand. 
And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn 25 

12. Native. — This suggests woman s nature, which has 
heretofore been repressed. 

15. Her pride is wounded, but it still lives. 

17. Clomb. — Note form for climbed. 

18. Leaguer. — The beleaguering army still awaits the 
Prince's fate. 

19. Void was her use. — Cf. Ayhncr's Field; cf. Shakes- 
peare's Othello, III, iii, 357- 

20-26. This beautiful picture has its original in a storm 
seen from vSnowdon in Wales. The counterpart (V. 338 fif.) 
might have been seen from the vale below ; cf. Collin's as- 
sertion that it is taken from Iliad, IV, 275. Cf. In Memo- 
riam, XV. 

23. Verge. — Horizon. IV, 29; cf. Marge, In Memoriam, 
XLVI, 4. 



202 THE PRINCESS: [cantovii 

Expunge the world ; so fared she gazing- there ; 
So blackened all her world in secret, blank 
And waste it seemed and vain ; till down she came, 
And found fair peace once more among the sick. 

And twilight dawned ; and morn by morn the lark 30 
Shot up and shrilled in flickering gyres, but I 
Lay silent in the muffled cage of life ; 
And twilight gloomed ; and broader-grown the bowers 
Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, 
Star after star, arose and fell ; but I, 35 

Deeper than those weird doubts could reacli me, lay 
Quite sundered from the moving Universe, 
Nor knew^ what eye was on me, nor the hand 
That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep. 

But Psyche tended Florian ; with her oft ^q 

Melissa came ; for Blanche had gone, but left 
Her child among us, willing she should keep 

29. Ida finds fair peace in action. This thought is fre- 
quent in Tennyson ; cf. The Lady of Shalott, the theme of 
which seems to be: Life wearies of shadows and longs for 
realities, though they cost life; The Palace of Art, in which 
the 'make me a cottage in the vale' indicates companionship 
and sympathy with the lowly. Cf, Ulysses, The Golden 
Year, etc. 

31. Cf. Shelley's Skylark and Milton's U Allegro, 40 ff. 

33. Gloomed. — Turned to dark. Cf. Ulysses, 45. Broader- 
grown. — This is a shadow effect. 

Z6. That is, unconscious, yet he knows and relates what 
happened. Cf. VI, i, 5. 



CANTO VII 



A MEDLEY. 203 



Court-favor; here and there the small bright head, 

A light of healing, glanced about the couch, 

Or thro' the parted sill<s the tender face 

Peeped, shining in upon the wounded man 45 

With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves 

To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw 

The sting from pain; nor seemed it strange that soon 

lie rose up whole, and those fair charities 

Joined at her side ; nor stranger seemed that hearts 50 

So gentle, so employed, should close in love. 

Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake 

To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, 

And slip at once all-fragrant into one. 

Less prosperously the second suit obtained 55 

At first with Psyche. Not tho' Blanche had sworn 
That after that dark night among the fields 
She needs must wed him for her own good name ; 
Not tho' he built upon the babe restored ; 
Nor tho' she liked him, yielded she, but feared ^° 

To incense the head once more ; till on a day 
When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind 

43. Blanche's ambition for Melissa. See Note, IV, 346. 

44. Cf. IT, 302. 

51, Joined. — Shared, took part in. 

55. The first match of the hospital. 

58. Reputation. Cf. V, 47, 48, and IV, 222. 

60. Gratitude. Cf. V, loi. 

61. Love. Cf. II, 27r, for a tell-tale omission. 

62. Fear prevails over all. Ida's power has not vanished. 

Cf. vr, 182, 278. 



204 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii 

Seen but of Psyche ; on her foot she hung 

A moment, and she heard, at which her face 65 

A httle flushed, and she passed on; but each 

Assumed from thence a half-consent involved 

In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. 

Nor only these ; Love in the sacred halls 
Held carnival at will, and flymg struck 70 

With showers of random sweet on maid and man. 
Nor did her father cease to press my claim, 
Nor did mine own, now reconciled ; nor yet 
Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole ; 
Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 75 

I 

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat ; 
Then came a change ; for sometimes I would catch 
Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, 
And fling it like a viper off, and shriek, 
'You are not Ida ;' clasp it once again, 80 

And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not, 
And call her sweet, as if in irony, 

67. A poetical variant of "Silence gives consent." Second 
match. 

71. Random sweet. — Cf. the confetti of carnival. 

78. Gripe. — A favorite word with poets; cf. Spenser, 
Shakespeare, Pope, Browning, and others. 

81-85. This use of repetition for the opening of consecu- 
tive lines is not infrequent. Cf. 91-97; Prl- 45-47; H. 5^58; 
IV, 285-288, etc. 

82-83. The medley continues. 



CANTO vii] A AIEDLEY. 205 

And call her hard and cold, which seemed a truth; 

And still she feared that I should lose my mind, 

And often she believed that I should die; 85 

Till out of long frustration of her care, 

And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons, 

And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks 

Throbbed thunder thro' the palace floors, or called 

On flying Time from all their silver tongues — 90 

And out of memories of her kindlier days, 

And sidelong glances at my father's grief 

And at the happy lovers heart in heart — 

And out of hauntings of my spoken love, 

And lonely listenings to my muttered dream, 95 

And often feeling of the helpless hands. 

And wordless broodings on the wasted check — 

From all, a closer interest flourished up. 

Tenderness touch by touch ; and last, to these. 

Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears roo 

By some cold morning glacier; frail at first 

And feeble, all unconscious of itself. 

But such as gathered color day by day. 

86. Frustration.— Defeat, disappointment, vanity. The 
Princess' care of the Prince seems vain. 

91. Kindlier. — Not only more gentle, but more according 
to her kind or nature. 

98. Gratitude, bitter, then burdensome, then clogging; 
next, closer interest; tenderness; and finally, love. This is a 
natural progression. 

103. The paragraph that tells of her growth in love is fol- 
lowed by his recovery. 



2o6 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii 

Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death 
For weakness; it was evening; silent light 105 

Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought 
Two grand designs ; for on one side arose 
The women up in wild revolt, and stormed 
At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they crammed 
The forum, and half-crushed among the rest no 

A dwarf-like Cato cowered. On the other side 
Hortensia spoke against the tax ; behind, 
A train of dames ; by axe and eagle sat, 
With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, 
And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins, 115 

The fierce triumvirs ; and before them paused 
Hortensia pleading; angry was her face. 

I saw the forms ; T knew not where I was ; 
They did but look like hollow shows ; nor more 

104. Sane.— (i) In body, convalescent, (2) in mind, be- 
coming free from doubts and weird seizures. Cf. ^2^. 

109. Oppian law.— Cf. Livy, XXXIV. This sumptuary 
law prohibited women from wearing gay-colored dresses and 
much jewelry. Titanic. — This epithet refers to the repre- 
sentation, not to the women themselves; Cato is represented 
as dwarf-like for contrast. 

111. Cowered. — A poetical, rather than a real picture. 

112. Hortensia. — Daughter of the orator Hortensius 
and herself something of a speaker. 

113. Axe and eagle. — Cf. Rome's insignia. 

115. Wolf's milk. — Roman blood. Cf. Rome's sacred 
animal. 

119. Cf. Ill, 169; V, 467, etc. 



CANTO VII] A MEDLEY. 207 

Sweet Ida; palm to palm she sat; the dew 120 

Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape 

And rounder seemed ; I moved ; I sighed ; a touch 

Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand ; 

Then all for languor and self-pity ran 

Mine down my face, and with what life I had, 125 

And like a flower that cannot all unfold, 

So drenched it is with tempest, to the sun, 

Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 

Fixed my faint eyes, and uttered whisperingly : 

'If you be what I think you, some sweet dream, 130 
I would but ask you to fulfil yourself ; 
But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 
I ask you nothing; only, if a dream, 
Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.' 135 

I could no more, but lay like one in trance, 
That hears his burial talked of by his friends, 
And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign, 
But lies and dreads his doom. She turned ; she 

paused ; 
She stooped ; and out of languor leapt a cry ; 140 

Leapt fiery Passion from the brmks of death ; 
And I believed that m the living world 

120. Cf. II, 295. 

121. Cf. 8-10 for another example of the beautifying ef- 
fect of womanly deeds. 

131. Fulfil. — That is, become real. 
141. Cf. note on 98, 



2o8 THE PRINCESS: [canto vir 

My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips ; 

Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose 

Glowing all over noble shame ; and all 145 

Her falser self slipped from her like a robe, 

And left her woman, lovelier in her mood 

Than in her mold that other, when she came 

From barren deeps to conquer all with love ; 

And down the streaming crystal dropped; and she 150 

Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, 

Naked, a double light in air and wave. 

To meet her Graces, where they decked her out 

For worship without end ; nor end of mine, 

Stateliest, for thee! But mute she glided forth, 155 

Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept. 

Filled thro' and thro' with Ix)ve, a happy sleep. 

143. Cf. Locksley Hall, 38; Cf. also Stephen Phillips' 
Paolo and Francesco, p. no. 

' And in that kisrs our souls 
• Together flashed, and now they are one flame 

Which nothing can put out, nothing divide.' 

147. Woman. — This only and without the desire to be 
something else. This is a dynamic point in the poem. 

148. This picture of Aphrodite adds nothing of value to 
the picture of Ida, and distracts the mind. We are inter- 
ested in Ida, the lovely woman, not in myths and poet's 
fancies; but the poet saves himself from the penalty of a 
needless digression by the skill with which he gets back to 
his main thought. 

154. Mine. — Namely, worship. 

155. Thee. — For the first time, but from now on. Cf. 
Tennyson's use of this form in his letters of affection. 

157. Out of this happy, natural sleep he comes restored. 



CANTO vii] A MEDLEY. 200 

Deep in the night I woke ; she, near me, held 
A vohime of the Poets of her land ; 
There to herself, all in low tones, she read. 160 

' Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; 
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font; 
The fire-fly wakens; waken thou with me. 

' Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, 165 

And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 

* Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

* Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 

A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 170 

159. Poets of her land.— Cf. II, 164. The poem is 
Grecian; is the country Greece? * 

160. Heart-Union— P/of Song F— This 'palace-song of 
love,' which lends itself to contrast with the peasant song 
below, is an appropriate expression of Ida's longing for a 
vital union of hearts. Its exact fitness as a morning song to 
waken her lover from his dream of night into the bright 
dawn of the new day (325) is no less obvious than its artistic 
revelation of the transformed Princess. Note the studied 
avoidance of rhyme but the use of verbal repetition. 

163. Winks.— Twinkle, flash. Cf. Keats' Ode to a 
Nightingale. 

167. All Danae to the stars.— "Open to their light, fall- 
ing upon her in a golden shower, like that in which Jupiter 
came down to visit Danae. (Rolfe.) 

170. Cf. Ill, 2. 



2IO THE PRINCESS: [canto vii 

* Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, 
And slips into the bosom of the lake ; 
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
Into my bosom and be lost in me.' 

I heard her turn the page; she found a small 175 

Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read : 

' Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height; '^ 
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), 
In height and cold, the splendor of the hills? 
But cease to move so near the heavens, and cease ^5^ 

To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine, 
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; 
And come, for Love is of the valley, come. 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down 

177. The Lover^s Appeal — Plot Song VI — Stedman {Vic- 
torian Poets, 228) considers this 'Sweet Idyl,' suggested by 
the Eleventh Idyl of Theocritus (20-79), *so far as objective 
beauty and finish are concerned, the nonpareil of the whole 
poem.' It is in beautiful contrast with Ida's song of Heart- 
Union. This appeal of the shepherd lover to his maid so far 
above him rightly represents the appeal of the Prince, whose 
humility is increasing, to Ida, who in her lofty stateliness 
and passionless intellectuality, had seemed so far aloof. 
'Come down from the cold, barren heights of death and 
isolation into the vale of life abundant' is the poem's re- 
curring theme. 

179. The rarified air of isolation. Cf. The Lady of 
Shalott, etc. 

182. Cook thinks this refers to the 'Aiguilles' of the Alps 
and cites, for this Alpine scenery, Byron's Manfred I, ii, and 
Coleridge's Hymn Before Sunrise. 

184. Cf. The Palace of Art. 



CANTO vii] A MEDLEY. 211 

And find him; by the happy threshold he, 185 

Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, 

Or red with spirted purple of the vats, 

Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk 

With Death and Morning on the Silver Horns, 

Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, igo 

Nor find him dropped upon the firths of ice 

That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 

To roll the torrent out of dusky doors. 

But follow; let the torrent dance thee down 

To find him in the valley; let the wild 195 

Lean-headed eagles yelp alone ; and leave 

The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 

That like a broken purpose waste in air; 

So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales 200 

Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth 

Arise to thee ; the children call, and I, 

Thy shepherd, pipe, and sweet is every sound, 

188. Cf. Theocritus Idyl I, and Song of Solomon. 

189. With Death and Morning on the Silver Horns. 
According to Rolfe the poet approved the interpretation 
'that ]\Iorning walks in the mountains here, as "o'er the dew 
of yon high eastern hill" in Hamlet (I, i, 67) ; and Death is 
her companion, because life has no home on these "Alpine 
summits cold," or must face Death in attempting to scale 
them.' Silver Horns. — Silberhorn — a spur of the Jungfrau. 

191-193. According to Bayard Taylor this is a picture of 
the Mer de Glace. Why not Grindelwald, which is nearer 
the Jungfrau? Firth. (An arm of the sea), etc. Cf. frith, 
In Memoriam (Conclusion 29). 

198. Water-smoke. — This recalls Staubbach, also near the 
Jungfrau. Cf. Lotus-Eaters, 10 ff. 

201. The nature of this lyric alone justifies such a eu- 
phemism for 'smoke.' 



212 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii 

Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet : 

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 205 

The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 

And murmuring of innumerable bees.' 

So she low-toned ; while with shut eyes I lay 
Listening; then looked. Pale was the perfect face; 
The bosom with long sighs labored ; and meek 210 

Seemed the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes ; 
And the voice trembled, and the hand. She said 
Brokenly, that she knew it, she had failed 
In sweet humility; had failed in all; 
That all her labor was but as a block 215 

Left in the quarry ; but she still were loth, 
She still were loth to yield herself to one 
That wholly scorned to help their equal rights 
Against the sons of men and barbarous laws. 
She prayed me not to judge their cause from her 2?o 

That wronged it, sought far less for truth than power 
Li knowledge ; something wild within her breast, 

205-207. Read these lines over several times for their 
vocal beauty. 

208. Cf. 6. 

209-212. Contrast IV, 363 ff. 

214. The confession of her last fault — pride. Cf. 15. 

218. She clings to her creed of 'equal rights' (I, 130; IV, 
56), and would not have it 'wholly scorned,' nor would the 
Prince or the Poet. Cf. 239 ff. ; Concl. 74. 

221. This 'truth in knowledge' is the dramatic antithesis 
of I, 134-6; II, 43. This is Ida's mistake. Cf. note on V, 
409. 

222. Something wild. — Love. Cf. Pil. 128, 



CANTO vii] A MEDLEY. 213 

A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. 

And she had nursed me there from week to week ; 

Much had she learnt in little time. In part 225 

It was ill counsel had misled the girl 

To vex true hearts ; yet was she but a girl — 

*Ah, fool, and made myself a Queen of farce ! 

When comes another such? never, I think, 

Till the sun drop, dead, from the signs.' 

Her voice 230 

Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands. 
And her great heart thro' all the faultful Past 
Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break ; 
Till notice of a change in the dark world 
Was lisped about the acacias, and a bird, 235 

That early woke to feed her little ones, 
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light; 
She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. 

'Blame not thyself too much,' I said, 'nor blame 
Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws ; 
These were the rough ways of the world till now. 
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 

226. Ill counsel.— Blanche's ; cf. VI, 306, etc. 

228. The reader will hardly endorse the Princess' self- 
condemnation. 

229. Signs.— Of the Zodiac. 
235 ff. This beautiful description of the dawning day is a 

fitting prelude to the full flush of daydight thrown in the 
next lines upon the 'woman-question.' 

237. Cf. In Mcmoriam, LIV, 5. 

240. Cf. 219. 



240 



214 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii 

The woman's cause Is man's ; they rise or sink 

Together, dwarfed or godHke, bond or free; 

For she that out of Lethe scales with man 245 

The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 

His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, 

Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 

If she be small, slight-natured, miserable. 

How shall men grow ? But work no more alone ! 250 

Our place is much ; as far as in us lies 

We two will serve them both in aiding her — 

Will clear away the parasitic forms 

That seem to keep her up, but drag her down — - 

Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 255 

243. The woman's cause is man^s. — It is also the child's. 
Cf. VI, 183. There is no such thing as woman's rights that 
isolate her. Cf. 218. 

245. Cf. In Memoriam, XLIV; Lethe, forgetfulness of the 
past with its injustices, etc. 

246. Shining steps. — Cf. In Memoriam, LV, 15, 16. 
248. Cf. In Memoriam, XL, 4. Does planet mean the 

younger generation, as Dawson thinks? In line 78, Conclu- 
sion, Tennyson says, "This fine old world of ours is but a 
child." This fair young planet, which, like a child, is to be 
trained, rests in the hands of woman, and under that other 
guiding hand (Concl. 79) must through her be transformed 
into a statelier Eden (277). 

251. Our place (position and influence) is much. — Let 
Princes and Princesses set the example. 

252. Them both. — Both man and woman. 

254. Cf. Prl. 127-8; II, 47-54. Catalogue some of these 
'parasitic forms.' 

255. Burgeon. — Blossom, put forth. Cf. In Memoriam, 
CXV. 



CANTO vii] A MEDLEY. 215 

Within her— let her make herself her own 

To give or keep, to live and learn and be 

All that not harms distinctive womanhooci. 

For woman is not undeveloped man, 

But diverse ; could we make her as the man, 260 

Sweet Love was slain ; his dearest bond is this, 

Not like to like, but like in difference. 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 

The man be more of woman, she of man ; 

He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 265 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; 

She, mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 

Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 

Till at the last she set herself to man. 

Like perfect music unto noble words ; 270 

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 

Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers. 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 

258. Distinctive.— See here the key to this final solu- 
tion. 

259. Cf. George Eliot's Review of Cousin's 'Mme. de 
Sable: 

263. This rational solution of the question of equality- 
satisfies to the full, and establishes a standard for each sex. 
268. Ida reversed. Cf. T, 136. 

270. "Music is love in search of a word." Lanier's Sym- 
phony. 

271. Skirts of Time.— Cf. Love and Duty. Skirts- 
verge— marge— horizon— extreme Hmits— indefinite future. 

272. Ida reversed again. Cf. IV, 129-130. 
27Z. To BE.— Future. Cf. In Memoriam, CVI. 



2i6 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii 

Self-reverent each and reverencing each, 

Distinct in individuaHties, 275 

But Hke each other even as those who love. 

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men ; 

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm ; 

Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 

May these things be !' 

Sighing she spoke : *I fear 280 

They will not.' 

'Dear, but let us type them now 
In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 
Of equal ; seeing either sex alone 
Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
Nor equal, nor unequal ; each fulfils 285 

Defect in each, and always thought in thought, 
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 



274. Self-reverent. — Cf. CEnone, 142. 

277. The enlarged new Paradise. Cf. Milton's Paradise 
Lost, XII, 464. 

278. Bridals. — Marriages. Cf. Geraint and Enid. 

279. Cf. In Memoriam, "Epithalamium," 32, etc. 
281-289. 'Tt was no mere dramatic sentiment, but one of 

my father's strongest convictions of the true relation between 
man and woman which impelled him to write" (these lines). 
Memoir I, 249; but, according to line 291, the thought is 
first woman's. Type. — Give a type or example. 

282. Watchword . . . equal. — Rather catchword 
falsely used to bring in discord. A womanly woman and 
a princely man have no quarrel as to equal rights. 

284. Half itself. — Here the high-born poet and Franklin, 
the philosopher of the commonplace, are agreed. 



CANTO vii] A MEDLEY. V217 

The single pure and perfect animal. 

The two-celled heart beating, with one full stroke, 

Life.' 

And again sighing she spoke : * A dream 290 

That once was mine! what woman taught you this?' 

'Alone/ I said, 'from earlier than I know, 
Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, 
I loved the woman ; he that doth not lives 
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self, 295 

Or pines in sad experience worse than death, 
Or keeps his winged affections clipped with crime ; 
Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one 
Not learned, save in gracious household ways, 
Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, 300 

No angel, but a dearer being, all dipped 
In angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
Interpreter between the Gods and men, 
Who looked all native to her place, and yet 
On tiptoe seemed to touch upon a sphere 305 

Too gross to tread ; and all male minds perforce 
Swayed to her from their orbits as they moved, 
And girdled her with music. Happy he 

2S8. Animal. — That is, living creature. Tennyson's 
"man-woman" in Christ, the union of tenderness and 
strength. Memoir, I, 326, n. 

297. Cf. Aylmer's Field, 373-7. 

298. The Prince's mother. Is it also the poet's mother? 
301. Cf. Wordsworth's 'She Was a Phantom of Delight.* 
307. Cf. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, V, i, 58, 65 ; 

Twelfth Night, III, i, 115; As You Like It, II, vii, 6. 



2l8 THE PRINCESS: [cantovii 

With such a mother ! faith in womankind 

Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 310 

Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 

He shall not blind his soul with clay/ 

'But 1/ 
Said Ida, tremulously ; *so all unlike — 
It seems you love to cheat yourself with words; 
This mother is your model. I have heard 315 

Of your strange doubts ; they well might be ; I seem 
A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince ; 
You cannot love me/ 

'Nay, but thee,' I said, 
*From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes. 
Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw 320 

Thee, woman, thro' the crust of iron moods 
That masked thee from men's reverence up, and forced 
Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood ; now, 
Given back to life, to life indeed, thro' thee. 
Indeed I love ; the new day comes, the light -25 

Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults 
Lived over; lift thine eyes; my doubts are dead, 
My haunting sense of hollow shows ; the change, 

309. Cf. I, 22; V, 159, 184, 398. 

312. Total depravity is impossible to the son of such a 
mother. 

318. But thee. — None other than thee. 

319. Cf. I, 37, etc. 

321. From previous notes collate them. 

323. On. — Into. 

326. The Prince identifies his new life with the new day. 

327-8. Love cures doubts. Cf. 104. 



CANTO vii] A MEDLEY. 219 

This truthful change in thee has killed it. Dear, 

Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, 330 

Like yonder morning on the blind half-world ; 

Approach and fear not ; breathe upon my brows ; 

In that fine air I tremble, all the past 

Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this 

Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come 335 

Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland. reels 

Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me, 

I waste my heart in signs ; let be. My bride, 

My wife, my life. O we will walk this world. 

Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 340 

And so thro' those dark gates across the wild 

329. Has the Princess changed more than the Prince? 

331. BLIND.—That is, dark. But the masculine half-world 
is blind too to the light of such natures as Ida's. 

332. Fear. — Has she shown any signs of fear? First, 
that her cause was misunderstood (220) ; second, that the 
ideal state the Prince pictures may not be realized (280) ; 
third, that she will be measured by his mother, and hence be 
unloved (315). To all these the Prince says, 'Fear not.' 

335. Morn to more. — But the opening of the brighter 
day. To come.— Cf. To . . . be,' 273. 

337. Weeds.— Formerly written 'Powers' Taylor praises 
the word 'flowers,' and another critic the courage in writing 
weeds, because it was true. But may not weeds suggest the 
relative worthlessness of all the fancies, chimeras, false con- 
ceptions and plans that are destroyed in order that this 
vision of a 'rich to . . . come' may appear? 

340. Purpose of life. 

341. Dark gates. — Namely, graves. Across the wild.—- 
Namely, eternity. 



220 THE PRINCESS: [canto vii 

That no man knows. Indeed I love thee ; come, 
Yield thyself up ; my hopes and thine are one ; 
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself; 
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me/ 345 

344. Accomplish. — Fill out, complete. 

345. Be dependent. Submit to authority (VI, 219), but 
unlike that to which she was formerly entrusted, for this is 
the confidence of love. 



conclusion] a medley. 221 



CONCLUSION. 

[The finished form of the random scheme is here artisti- 
cally explained. Then follows a contrast between France and 
England, a tribute to the type of Englishman revealed in 
Sir Walter, a final picture of the Abbey company, and the 
return home. — Ed.] 

So closed our tale, of which I give you all 

The random scheme as wildly as it rose; 

The words are mostly mine ; for when we ceased 

There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 

T wish she had not yielded !' then to me, 

'What if you dressed it up poetically!' 

So prayed the men, the women ; I gave assent ; 

I. For the complete setting of the poem the conclusion 
here rounds out what is suggested or left unfinished in the 
Prologue. The plan was preserved, but the form was revised 
by the author, hence the uniformity of style. 

In place of the first thirty-two lines stood in the first edi- 
tion the following: 

' Here closed our compound story, which at first 
Had only meant to banter little maids 
With mock heroics and with parody : 
But slipt in some strange way, ci ost with burlesque., 
From mock to earnest, even into tones 
Of tragic, and with less and less of jest 
To such a serious end, that Lilia fixt.' — 

4. Cf. Prl. 8. 

5. Cf. Prl. 126, 147. 



2,22 THE PRINCESS: [conclusion 

Yet how to bind the scatterea scheme of seven 

Together in one sheaf? What style could suit? 

The men required that I should give throughout 

The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque 

With which we bantered little Lilia first ; 

The women — and perhaps they felt their power, 

For something in the ballads which they sang, 

Or in their silent influence as they sat, 

Had ever seemed to wrestle with burlesque, 

And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 

They hated banter, wished for something real, 

A gallant fight, a noble princess — why 

Not make her true-heroic, true-sublime? 

Or all, they said, as earnest as the close? 

Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. 

Then rose a little feud betwixt the two, 

Betwixt the mockers and the realists ; 

And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, 

i And yet to give the story as it rose, 

I I moved as in a strange diagonal, 
And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 

8. Scattered scheme of seven.— Prl. 222. 

II. Mock-heroic, etc.— Cf. Prl. 217 ff. Cf. II, 28-52. 

14. Cf. the intercalary poems. 

16. Wrestle with burlesque.— Thereby increasing the 
medley, since the narrators were at first jesting and the 
audience serious. 

24. Realists. — Those who wished for something real. 18. 

27. The mockers wished the line thii"^ 



25 



realists thus [ ; but he moved 
equidistant from both. 



the diagonal 



conclusion] a medley. 223 

But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part 
In our dispute; the sequel of the tale 30 

Had touched her ; and she sat, she plucked the grass. 
She flung it from her, thinking; last, she fixed 
A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 
'You — tell us what we are ;' who might have told, 
For she was crammed with theories out of books, 35^ 
But that there rose a shout ; the gates were closed 
At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now, 
To take their leave, about the garden rails. 

So I and some went out to these; we climbed 
The slope to Vivian Place, and turning saw 4o 

The happy valleys, half in light, and half 
Far-shadowing from the west, a land of peace ; 
Gray halls alone among their massive groves; 
Trim hamlets ; here and there a rustic tower 
Half-lost in belt of hop and breadths of wheat ; 45 

The shimmering glimpses of a stream ; the seas ; 

30. Cf. Interlude, 23; Lilia had her wish. 

35. Sherman thinks this jocular, Cook calls it sarcasm; but 
it is also truth that the bookish theories of which Ida was the 
exponent and the maiden aunt perhaps the advocate had been 
dispelled by touching life at first hand. 

2,7- Crowd. — How completely the reader has forgot the 
people (Prl. 3) during the telling of this story. It is then of 
absorbing interest. 

40. Prl. 54. 

42. Far-shadowing. — Filling themselves with long shad- 
ows from the low sun in the west. 



224 THE PRINCESS: [conclusion 

A red sail, or a white ; and far beyond, 
Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France. 

'Look there, a garden V said my college friend. 
The Tory member's elder son, 'and there ! 50 

God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off. 
And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, 
A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — 
Some sense of duty, something of a faith. 
Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, 55 
Some patient force to change them when we will, 
Some civic manhood firm agamst the crowd — 
But yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat. 
The gravest citizen seems to lose his head. 
The king is scared, the soldier will not fight, eo 

The little boys begin to shoot and stab, 
A kingdom topples over with a shriek 
Like an old woman, and down rolls the world 

49. There, — In merry England, and there (50), France. 

49-71. This paragraph was inserted in 1850, after the 
revolution of 1848. This is one of many paragraphs in 
which Tennyson expresses his antipathy to France and 'the 
red fool-fury of the Seine.' For a discussion of this see 
Stopford Brooke, Tennyson, p. 31 ff. 

56. Love Thou Thy Land, You Ask Me Why, and others, 
show his confidence in English development. 

57. Civic— Cf. In Mcmoriam, CIX, 4; CXXVII. 

58. Yonder.— Across the Straits of Dover. Cf. Shakes- 
peare's Merchant of Venice, II, viii, 28. 

58-70. This is a Tory Englishman's view of the irrita- 
bility of the Celtic nation. 



70 



75 



conclusion] a medley. 225 

In mock heroics stranger than our own ; 

Revolts, repubhcs, revohitions, most 65 

No graver than a schoolboys' barring out; 

Too comic for the solemn things they are, 

Too solemn for the comic touches in them. 

Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 

As some of theirs ; God bless the narrow seas ! 

I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.' 

'Have patience,' I replied, 'ourselves are full 
Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams 
Are but the needful preludes of the truth ; 
For me the genial day, the happy crowd, 
The sport half-science, fill me with a faith. 
This fine old world of ours is but a child 
Yet in the go-cart. Patience ! Give it time 
To learn its limbs ; there is a hand that guides.* 

64. Facts in France form more of a 'medley' than an 
Englishman's 'mock-heroics,' such as The Princess. 

66. Barring out, of die teacher by his scholars. 

67-68. Might not these lines be used as a comment on this 
whole poem of The Princess? 

72- Wildest dreams, such as Ida's ; such, too, as the 
French harbored in their revolution. Did not England learn 
from these revolutions of France how to protect herself? 

y6. Half-science.— Cf. Prl. 58 ff. Faith.— Note this 
abiding faith held throughout the Tennyson poems. 

77. Cf. VII, 248. 

79. There is a hand that guides. — Cf. Browning's 
Spring Song from Pippa Passes. This is the essential article 
of Tennyson's creed. 



226 THE PRINCESS: [conclusion 

In such discourse we gained the garden rails, 80 

And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, 
Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, 
Among six boys, head under head, and looked 
No little lily-handed Baronet he, 

A great broad-shouldered genial Englishman, 35 

A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, 
A raiser of huge melons and oi pine, 
A patron of some thirty charities, 
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none ; 90 

Fair-haired and redder than a windy morn; 
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those 
That stood the nearest — now addressed to speech — 
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed 
Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 95 

To follow ; a shout rose again, and made 
The long line of the approaching rookery swerve 
From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer 
From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang 



82. Tower. — A circular mass. Holly-oaks. — Same as 
holly-hocks. 

84. Lily-handed Baronet. — Like Gama of the poem, V, 
223. 

87. Pine. — Pineapples. He is a fruit fancier. 

90. Quarter-sessions chairman. — Presiding officer of a 
magistrate's court, meeting quarterly to hear trivial causes. 

93. Addressed. — May refer to Sir Walter or to 'those 
nearest.' It seems to mean, ready, prepared for. 

97. Rookery. — Crow-flight. Cf. Locksley Hall. 



conclusion] a medley. 227 

Beyond the bourn of sunset ; O, a shout 100 

More joyful than the city-roar that hails 

Premier or king ! — Why should not these great Sirs 

Give up their parks some dozen times a year 

To let the people breathe? — So thrice they cried, 

I likewise, and in groups they streamed away. 105 

But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on. 
So much the gathering darkness charmed ; we sat 
But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie. 
Perchance upon the future man; the walls 
Blackened about us, bats wheeled, and owls whooped, no 
And gradually the powers of the night. 
That range above the region of the wind. 
Deepening the courts of twilight, broke them up 
Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds. 
Beyond all thought into the Heaven O'f Heavens. 115 

Last little Lilia, rising quietly, 

100. Bourn. — Cf. Shakespeare's Hamlet, I, iii, 79. 

104. The hearty three cheers. 

109. Future man. — A complement to this poem on the 
future woman. Cf. VII, 262, ff, for an outline of his growth. 

113. Broke them up. — Destroyed the courts of twilight; 
that is, twilight itself, 

115. Heaven of Heavens. — I Kings viii, 27, etc. Cf. 
Mariana in the South; cf. 'beyond the bourn of sunset,' 100; 
'across the wild,' VII, 341. 

116. Lilia, 'half child half woman' (Prl. loi) had pro- 
voked this story, and she had also decked the statue of a 
man in woman's ornaments. Lilia, still recalling the child 



228 THE PRINCESS: - [conclusion 

Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph 

From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went. 

and the woman, joint heroines of the poem, removes the 
fantastic colors from the dark, broken statue — and the medley- 
is past. 

ii8. Home well-pleased we went. — The poet's comment 
on the satisfaction of the little Abbey company is the final 
comment on the poem's reception by its thousands of readers. 
The critics may have found this fault or that, and missed 
this or that merit, but the readers who have surrendered 
themselves to the poet's mood have been 'well-pleased.' 



Annt QS 1001 



Q 20 1901 



